Visited by a Doctor
by Tangerine-Alert
Summary: At a young age Harry met someone called the Doctor, he became his friend. Over the course of his school life the Doctor returned, in each of his incarnations. Leaving Hogwarts Harry continues to have adventures, visited upon by the Doctor's influences.
1. Chapter 1

--

Disclaimer: All characters, names, settings etc belong to their respective copyright holders. I'm just wandering around in their universe.

**Chapter 01**

In a quiet part of not so boring Surrey a noise made itself known, and slowly a box faded into reality accompanied by a trumpeting, groaning of the dimensions being forced apart.

Then a moment later, as though it had always been there, a police box, that would have been at home in the 1960s was standing on a deserted street, not far from the local school.

Inside the unfeasibly large box Ian Chesterton walked into the main control room where the Doctor was fussing around the controls, he'd felt the slight vibration indicating that they'd landed, as had Barbara, who had followed him from her room deeper within the ship.

Susan, like the Doctor was there and always seemed to know when the ship was about to land, though most of the time she left most of the landing controls to her grandfather. Ian had on occasion asked the Doctor if he could help with anything, but those offers were always brushed aside.

"So Doctor where have we arrived this time, dangerous talking trees, short men who live in the ground and great rings to be discovered?" Ian asked with a smile to Barbara who looked back with a patient smile.

"Chesterton, I'll have you know that I knew Tolkien, a great man, you know, should have had many more years in him poor fellow."

"Poor, he's still alive as far as I know." Barbara asked looking to Ian.

"What, hmmm Miss Wright." The Doctor trailed off and looked to the young man and woman. "Oh you know, dear boy history is as history does…"

"We're in England Ian, a little after your time."

"That's very exact Susan." Barbara said looking at the young lady who often carried a maturity beyond her apparent years.

"Grandfather set the controls for our landing, precisely, didn't you grandfather?" There was a hint of worry in her voice.

""What? Oh yes of course Susan…Now…Ian, Barbara, I have, I mean I need to, that is…"

Ian exchanged a look with Barabara, the Doctor looked very…uncomfortable.

"Doctor? Is everything alright?" Barbara said as she moved around the console to look at him.

"Yes everything's fine dear woman…just, I have…" He paused again. "A favour to ask of you, you two."

"A favour?" Ian asked, moving around to Barbara's side.

"Yes, yes, yes. Only for a few weeks, something of a concern, a favour, watching over a young man, it is very much in your field…so to speak." He chuckled.

_2 week later…_

Ian was surprised at how easily he had settled into his 'job' once more. Two weeks ago the Doctor had removed from a battered brief case the details of his 'job' and the young man that he wanted them to keep an eye on.

It was a little different, schooling had changed some what, but this school, according to the other teachers was 'progressive' teaching practical science to primary level children certainly was in his eyes, but he had easily fallen back into his role. The children were smaller, but behaved the same, there were those that didn't listen, those that scribbled in their books, the ones who sat to the side and talked about the latest band, (supposedly John Smith and the Commonmen might be making a come back) and there were the surprisingly smart one, there was also the boy that the Doctor asked he and Barbara to keep their eye on…

_Flashback_

"So who is this young boy Doctor, he can't be more than 6 years old." Barbara said looking at the photo.

"Eight Miss Wright. He's eight…I know that much…" He muttered to himself.

"But who is he Doctor? You've never I mean…is he part of your family?" Baraba asked gently. The Doctor shook his head as he leant on the TARDIS console.

"Goodness me no Barbara, no. I knew his parents, we met them remember Susan, Godric's Hollow."

"Where?" Ian asked as he looked through his own folder.

"It's in the West Country, grandfather and I arrived some time ago, grandfather, so this boy he's Lilly's son?"

"Yes dear child, he is, the poor boy." The Doctor said sadly.

"Oh…but who told you about…" She was cut off by the Doctor.

"Another time, Susan, another time and place."

Ian noted that that seemed to quieten Susan as he looked at the photo of one Harry James Potter.

_Present_

Ian looked up as the children filed in into his classroom. He watched as Harry Potter took a seat close to the front, and as far away from his rather large cousin Dudley.

In talking with the other teachers in the school during his first couple of days at the Little Whinging primary school he'd heard mixed things of both boys.

According to many of the teachers they'd been informed by Dudley's parents that Harry Potter's parents had died in a car crash and that he was "a little on the _weird _side".

Even after only two weeks he'd found that Harry was on the contrary a smart, intelligent individual, far surpassing many of his classmates. Certainly surpassing his cousin whom it seemed many of the teachers had been 'persuaded' to favour.

For today's class he'd given out magnets and various substances for the children to play with, it was a nice easy way to introduce the children into practical physics.

Ian watched from the desk, smiling as he watched the children play, to think they were merely 20 years after his time, children were still children, school was still taught by teachers, and bullys were still bullies as he rose from his chair.

"Oi what're you doin'?" The large boy stared up at him as Ian snatched the slingshot out of Dudley Dursley's pudgy hands, Ian hadn't wanted to judge the boy too harshly based on his weight on first meeting, but after his first and subsequent encounters both in and outside the classroom had quickly re-evaluated his opinion.

"Taking away a dangerous weapon Dudley."

"Wasn't going to do anything _Chesterton_, was just playin' with it." The boy said and looked to his friends, laughing loudly as he lounged back in his chair, bumping a student's desk behind him, destabilising a balanced pyramid of magnets that Ian had just seen.

"That's _Mr _Chesterton Dudley, you're coming with me to the headmaster's office." Ian laid a firm hand on Dudley's shoulder pulling him up.

"As soon as you're gone my gang'll rule." He muttered as Ian opened the door to the hallway.

Ian looked down at the boy, it was meant to sound like a threat, especially considering the boy's delivery, and from what he'd heard it was a standard that one group of (usually well behaved children) could assist the teachers if they were ahead of the class.

"Perhaps Dudley." Ian said as he looked out into the corridor, thankfully Susan was out there. Ian wasn't quite sure what Susan was doing, the Doctor had said that she was to 'gather other information' while he was out around town, 'looking into things', but Susan always seemed to be around his or Barbara's classrooms when they had to deal with Harry…and Dudley.

"Ah Miss Foreman, could you mind my class while I take Dudley here to the headmaster's?"

"Of course Mr Chesterton, I'm sure I'll keep the class in order." She said, looking at Dudley in a curious way as she walked into the room.

"She's weird." Dudley said as she was gone, he had tried to shrug out of Ian's grip on his shoulder.

Ian had none of it, and held a firm though not hard grip on the boy as they walked.

As Ian was leaving the office having dumped Dudley with the headmaster's secretary he heard Dudley muttering something about his dad "giving a whole lotta money to the school".

_Later…_

Ian sat down into one of the soft armchairs cupping a mug of tea, he looked over at Barbara who was looking through some year 6 history assignments.

"Long day?" She asked looking up from the work.

"Just had a class with Dudley Dursley."

"And Harry?"

"Of course." Ian said looking around, the staffroom was empty, as most of the teachers were full time at work, it was only he and Barbara who took the specialist classes, supposedly instituted because of a 'cash injection'.

"Have you found out anything about him?" Ian asked curiously.

"Other than he's a bright curious 8 year old boy."

"Other than that." Ian said as he sipped the mug of tea. It was quite enjoyable in that it wasn't an odd colour from the TARDIS food machine, but a rich dark brown, with a touch of milk.

Barbara put down he marked pages.

"He's not just down trodden Ian, I think there's something systematic at home, he's not just scared of that cousin of his, he's terrified in many cases, he also self adjusts his work."

Ian nodded. "To make sure it's worse than his cousin's, yes I found this, also. I hope the Doctor is around tonight when we get back." Barbara nodded.

"Some of the others asked if we wanted to go to the local bar…" Ian blinked remembering their 'welcome drink' at the local establishment, he'd drunk some odd drinks at various points in history and other planets, but seeing someone order a 'slippery nipple' or an 'orgasm' had been…interesting, for a moment he wished back Mexico with the Aztec soliders, drinking together and learning the arts of war. Barbara also had been surprised by how society had progressed…

"Would you like to go Barbara?" He asked taking another mouthful of tea, he and Barbara had learnt to enjoy these 'quiet' times in their travels and embrace it, considering how many scrapes with aliens or dangerous people from history they ran across.

Barbara sighed. "No, there's a nice Italian restaurant near where the TARDIS is parked, we can use some of the Doctor's 'decimal system'" She shared a smile with Ian "money and have a _quiet_ night before we meet the Doctor."

Ian nodded, that was another thing, he'd seen some bands before, but the music that was played in the public bars was…it made the Daleks sound like opera singers.

--//

Susan smiled to Ian as he returned having delivered the horrible Dudley to the headmaster and made her way quickly out of the school.

Her grandfather was waiting by the corner of the road that lead to Privet Drive.

"Susan, what kept you child?" He asked look over her shoulder towards the school.

"Ian needed to take Dudley to the headmaster's office."

"Again? That boy is a nuisance."

"Have they _both_ gone out this time?" Susan asked as they walked through the streets.

"Yes, yes, I've made sure, a little 'prize' in Surrey, greed it seems is one of their vices." He chuckled. Though he did admit it had annoyed him at first, trying to look into the Dursely's house had been complicated, the woman Petunia, Lilly had mentioned her once or twice before during the short time he and Susan had known her and James, never seemed to go out. Her husband worked at some factory.

He and Susan had tried many reasons to get them both to leave the house from trying to get them to assist their neighbours (they didn't care) to more elaborate stunts which had failed to raise their attention.

But now they would have an hour or two to look around and investigate the house that Harry Potter lived in.

Susan looked around as they arrived at number 4 Privet Drive, grandfather removed a small thing from his pocket, it looked like a mass of tentacles, she recognised it as an organic lock pick he'd picked up some time ago in their travels.

Within seconds they were in, the lock pick was able to pick even the most complicated electronic lock, a simple tumbler arrangement proving no challenge for it.

Grandfather closed the door and looked around a faintly annoyed look on his face as he looked over at the wall, many pictures of Dudley, but none of Harry. He knew that the humans liked to have pictures to remind them of their formative years. His people had other means, computers who could paint for them, appearance though wasn't as important, certainly not in the terms that humans considered, he and Susan were far removed from them, but still this young boy Harry and his future concerned him, not that his future was very revealing at the moment.

"Check up stairs for young Harry's room, I will investigate the downstairs of the abode child."

"Yes grandfather." The Doctor watched as Susan leapt up the stairs, eager to look around the house now that they had finally gained uninterrupted access.

The Doctor walked around the house, tutting to himself, everything was immaculately cleaned, no hint of personality in the house. Opening a cupboard in the kitchen revealed it to be full of sweets and chocolates.

"Dreadful…" He muttered to himself thinking of the rotund Dudley, Chesterton had said that he was a handful that made Tlotoxl look friendly.

He looked out the kitchen windows out into the garden, it was surprisingly well kept, considering Vernon and Petunia's attitude to the outside he was surprised at the high standard of the exterior.

Turning back around to face the front door a worry began to form on his face, looking along the floor and carpet, tracking the depressions along the often walked areas, marks that would have been missed by human eyes he muttered to himself as he walked purposefully to the cupboard under the stairs, an annoyed scowl forming as he opened the door.

"Grandfather, grandfather…" Susan called as she ran down the stairs. "I can't find Harry's room, there's just a second room filled with toys up there."

"Yes child, I believe I have found his 'room'." The Doctor said from where he was crouched looking into the storage space that passed as a room.

Susan gasped. "He can't live in there can he grandfather?"

"Yes child, yes…hmmm…" Then there was a noise of people walking up to the door, muffled voices.

"…Can't believe it, the man didn't even know about _my_ prize." An irate man's voice bellowed through the door to a sound of keys.

"Quick Susan, fuse the lock."

Susan took the sonic device her grandfather occasionally used to repair some of the functions on the ship and aimed it at the door's lock, a buzzing noise erupted from the sonic device as it fused the inner workings of the lock.

"Come on Susan, out through the back!" Grandfather said as he shut the door of the cupboard under the stairs.

The Doctor waited impatiently as Susan relocked the back door as they hurried to the rear of number 4's garden and pried aside a part of the fence, that appeared as though an elephant had impacted it recently, and moved quickly out into the lane.

Removing a handkerchief he patted his brow, such exertion was at times invigorating, if it weren't for the undignified exit through a fence.

After a moment of quiet walking away from Privet Drive and its surrounds, just in case and also so he could regain his breath, cringing slightly at the more polluted air of 1980s Britain he guided Susan back toward the ship.

"What are we going to do grandfather? Harry Potter can't be left in that horrible cupboard."

"No, no, no, indeed, no Susan, I think perhaps…" He trailed off. "I think we should return to the ship, then perhaps take some currency and have dinner in that local establishment, Chesterton and Barbara will probably meet us there, perhaps, hmm? Then we can plan out next move."

--//

Ian opened the door of the Italian restaurant for Barbara, a part of him wanted to go back to the ship, to change first before going out, but he had quickly discovered that this was a place for a 'casual meal', much like most of the establishments around here. Especially considering the other teachers at the school already throught Barbara and in particular his choice of clothing was 'formal' or 'retro'.

He was about to ask the maitre d' for a table but as soon as he caught sight of Barbara and himself they were directed to a table in a secluded corner, at the back, where the Doctor and Susan were sitting.

Both were nursing a glass of red wine, the bottle appeared to have a lot of dust on it, he poured both himself and Barbara a glass each.

"Doctor, Susan." He said in greeting and twisted the bottle around to look at it for himself, there was no label.

"From the cellar of Queen Elizabeth."

"The second?" Barbara asked shocked, Ian could imagine the Doctor sneaking into Buckingham Palace and lifting a bottle from her personal cellar.

"No, the first, a lovely lady." The Doctor smiled as Susan took a long sip of the wine. Ian looked curiously at Susan, but she had informed both he and Barbara more than once that 'her people' couldn't get intoxicated, not unless they wanted to. Though as he looked at Susan she didn't appear to be as young as she sometimes appeared.

"We were expecting you earlier Chesterton."

"I was accompanying Mr Potter home."

"Why, those…" The Doctor trailed off. "That boy Dudley his parents pick him up in that monstrosity of a car."

"Yes I know Doctor…"

_Flashback, 1 hour ago…._

Ian walked through the corridors of the school making sure there were no children who had stayed behind to cause trouble, or no parents doing the same (in the best interests of their children, so he had been told) when he came across Harry Potter, walking, no struggling with his school bag and another student's bag, a quick glance at the scribbles on it left no question whose bag it was.

"Harry, what are you still doing here?" He asked softly, while the boy was very alert and curious in class, he seemed to be extremely cautious outside of class. Ian had decided early on to try and help instil some confidence in the boy.

"Mr…Mr Chesterton sir. I…"

"I saw Dudley's parents arrive earlier." Much earlier as it happened he had seen the vast Vernon Dursley arrive and demand to see the headmaster, who had been detained at a councilmen's meeting concerning…the budget or something. Dursley had been pushed off to the deputy head, a very cool individual, that made the Roof of the World seems like a balmy Aztec day. But she was nice enough with the children when she came out of her office, and didn't take any nonsense Dursley was practically shouting about.

Harry nodded as he attempt to heft the second bag onto his shoulder, almost topping over in the process.

"Here, let me help you Harry." He said taking the second bag from the boy.

"That's very kind of you Mr Chesterton." He started to say, as Ian took the bag and happened to look in. It was filled with bags of chocolates, not sold anywhere in the school, except provided in the staff room, there were also an assortment of jars of instant coffee and other items. Ian looked down at Harry quirking an eyebrow.

"I'm sorry Mr Chesterton, I didn't mean to take those I just…" Harry started looking worriedly at him.

Ian smiled gently. "I know Harry, I also know you didn't take these. Let's get these back to the staff room and then I'll walk with you home."

"That's…that's very kind Mr Chesterton, but my relatives don't like strangers." Ian chuckled, he'd heard that before…and look where it had got him. Harry looked at him oddly as he smiled more to himself.

"Come on Mr Potter." Ian gently placed a guiding hand on the young boy and lead him to the staff room.

Having emptied all Dudley's 'stash' as Harry had opened up a little after Ian filling in most of the blanks they left for the Dursley's after Ian had checked in with the headmaster's secretary explaining where he was going and ask that she tell Barbara who was in discussion with a few new children's parents.

The secretary nodded and smiled in understanding looking at Harry sympathetically.

"So Harry, why didn't your relatives pick you up this afternoon?" He asked as they walked slowly down the street.

"They…they um, don't like, they like me to get exercise, they say I eat too much." The last few words were delivered in a very sarcastic tone, especially for an 8 year old. He had become a little less cagey as Ian had chatted to him about random things while he replaced Dudley's stolen food from the staff room.

"That's a little hard to believe, next you'll be telling me that you like walking home in the fog." Ian smiled to himself. Harry looked up towards him.

As they arrived at the entrance to Privet Drive Harry stopped, they'd been talking about random, casual things, but it was quickly becoming clear to Ian that even by his limited knowledge of the popular culture in England now, Harry was more out of touch than he was, there were other things he now noticed away from the distractions of the classroom, Harry's fingernails were practically bitten to the bone. He also had burns along his arm, he knew what they were from, his mother had several of them, from hitting the racks of the over when pulling out trays of biscuits or other meals.

As Ian was thinking to himself Harry stopped.

"I can make it from here Mr Chesterton sir." They were just out of sight from Privet Drive, just around a corner.

"No Harry, I'll accompany you, I don't like you walking alone, you're very young."

"It's…it's quite alright, my relatives…"

"Don't like strangers, but that's alright because I'm a teacher at your school." Ian said as he started forward. Harry looked at him for a moment and trudged ahead.

--//

"Then?" Susan asked.

"I gave Vernon Dursley his son's bag back and a word about removing school property and the proper care of a child."

"So Doctor, why've you met us here?"

"Hmm Chesterton? First…" He looked up as their meal arrive. "First a meal then we should talk." He said calmly.

Ian reflected as they ate, it was such an odd event, that all four travellers sat together to eat, so frequently they were pursued and chased that sitting down to have a calm meal without bug-eyed-monsters bursting in was quite odd. Even though they did eat often within the ship, it was usually just himself and Barbara, sometimes Susan and all of the time the oblong food blocks from the ship's food machine, that tasted exactly as they were supposed to, but…were lacking somewhat.

It was also odd to see the Doctor eating at all, as he hardly ever ate with them inside the TARDIS, Barbara had suggested he probably ate when they were sleeping, in the TARDIS at least it seemed he slept a lot less than they did.

Quite soon they were finished and the Doctor began to explain his and Susan's 'expedition'.

"So what should we do Doctor? He can't live in those conditions, they already don't appear to feed or clothe him very well."

"Yes, yes Barbara, I think a visit would be order, to see all of them, shall we say next week?" The Doctor turned to look at Ian in the eyes. Barbara followed his gaze and turned to look at Ian.

"Ian?"

"Yes…Yes." Ian said breaking himself out of a thoughtful moment. "I believe I might have gotten through to young Harry, a few more…"

"Encouraging words, yes, the perfect thing, then a confrontation later."

"Why can't we…" Barbara trailed off searching for the word phrase some of the teachers had said. "Report them to 'child services'." The Doctor looked worried and shocked.

"No, no Miss Wright…I have, I mean, I know…Mr Potter is incrementally safer within that house than for long periods away from it."

"Why Doctor?"

"Another time Barbara, another time…" The Doctor fished out a pocket watch and looked at the time, tutting to himself. "Come, come, it is quite late, and you" He looked to the three before him. "have work tomorrow." He smiled to himself.

--//

Ian shoved his hands into his pockets as he made his way around the school yard, he was on lunch duty, keeping an eye on the children.

He'd had quite a full day, many of the children were warming to the idea of science, even the very young ones. He'd also had a relatively easy class with Harry and Dudley in the class. Though Dudley had still thrown a tantrum when during their game of bingo (an attempt to show that a die is random) went in Harry's and another student's favour.

Ian had apparently annoyed the boy further by pointing out that in a game of musical chairs he wouldn't always win, to which he had said proudly "I always _win_." Causing an odd awkward silence followed by much of the class laughing at him. He also saw Harry smile, proving the young man could do so.

As he looked around he became aware of yelling and shouting, following his ear he broke off at a run. As he got there the boy who was being beat upon was trying to escape from the throng, when suddenly there was an implosion of air, making Ian's ears pop and the children cheering were thrown backward, leaving only one child there.

"Where's the little Potter wimp gone?" Dudley Dursley yelled to one of his 'friends' Ian identified as Piers Polkiss.

"Dudley Dursley."

"What?" Dudley growled as he whipped around fist drawn into a punch, Ian looked down at him, with a cool hard expression.

"Mr Chesterton I was just…just sorting out some problems." He said smiling, or attempting to his hand dropping to his side.

"To the headmaster's office, both of you." Ian said looking to Piers also who was sneering at him.

"I'll get 'im later." He said in a not so soft voice as he turned to leave.

Ian watched him go as he made sure none of the other children were hurt and looked around for the boy who was seemingly the victim of the attack, Harry Potter.

There didn't seem to be any sign of him, and he only had Dudley's word for it as he was turning to return to the main yard Barbara came running up to him.

"Thank goodness I found you Ian…"

"What is it Barbara?"

"It's Harry, he just…well, he just appeared, on the roof of the art building…" Ian took off at a quick walk with Barbara.

She had been assisting the art teacher moving some of the art work the students from her year 6 history class had made; some very interesting Aztec jewellery that needed to be fired in the outdoor kiln. While they were outside she'd been looking up towards the school; and then Harry Potter had appeared, from thin air on the roof of the art building.

There was already a ladder out and the teachers were calling him down, but there appeared to be no movement.

"Harry? It's Mr Chesterton, you can come down now, there's no danger." He called up and made a step to start up the ladder when a pair of thin legs edged their way onto it and slowly climbed down.

As soon as he was down one of the other teachers, one Ian hadn't encountered much grabbed him hard, making him wince.

"You young man, are coming with me to the head's office."

"I'm on my way back to my classroom, I'll take him." Ian offered stepping up.

"Wouldn't want to stop your science work Chesterton." The teacher said cooly to him.

"It's quite alright." Ian didn't move from where he was standing very close to the other teacher.

The man stared at Ian, but he just gazed back at the man, he had stared down far more dangerous people than a middle aged primary school teacher.

"Are you alright Harry?" Ian asked as he led Harry into an empty classroom sitting him down at a desk.

"Yes, sir, Mr Chesterton, why?"

"Miss Wright said you, you were on the roof." Ian asked, avoiding the word 'appeared', for now.

"I…I…I was being. Playing with Dudley." That sounded to Ian as false as it probably did to Harry, as he failed to meet his worried gaze.

"And then you were on the roof?"

"Yes."' He mumbled.

"It was alright Harry, to get yourself away from the fi--, from your cousin."

"Am I in trouble Mr Chesterton?" He asked now looking up at him worry shinning out through his eyes. Now that his hair had brushed away, seemingly through sweat he noticed the scar on his head.

"Did you get that playing with your cousin Harry?" Ian tapped his own head in the same location as Harry's scar.

He quickly brushed his hair away.

"No, I got that when my parents died."

"I'm sorry Harry, I didn't mean to bring up bad memories." Ian trailed off, the Doctor hadn't told them much about how his parents had died nor had the folder or the photo shown the scar.

"It's alright Mr Chesterton." He slumped down slightly and then looked up. "Mr Chesterton, has anything…odd happened to you before?"

Ian smiled. "More than you would think Harry, why?"

"It's nothing."

"No, please Harry, you can talk to me."

"You, Miss Wright, Miss Foreman, you're all friends?"

"Yes, we're all friends. All of us have had some pretty odd things happen to us."

"I…I've never had any friends…but…I talked to a snake once…" He said in a small voice. Ian blinked, unsure of what to say, this revelation was quickly moving beyond even his experiences and into the realms of the Doctor's.

Ian sat, listening as the young man before him poured out the various 'odd things' that had happened to him throughout his life so far, the young boy slumped forward as he finished explaining this was not the first time he had 'outrun' Dudley's gang.

The he looked back up at Ian. "You don't believe me do you Mr Chesterton?" Harry looked between him and the door seemingly ready to run away. Ian smiled calmly at him.

"I think I do Harry, I have a friend who…thinks a lot more and I think might like to talk to you."

"To me…? Why?" Harry said his voice cracking.

"He's…" Ian trailed off trying to think of a way to quantify who the Doctor was to the young man. "He has more experience with odd things than I do. He's a Doctor."

"I've never been sick. Not like the flu or anything…My relatives they…doesn't matter…" He started then shook his head. Ian felt his own temper boil up once more as he recalled the Doctor's revelations the previous night and then made a snap decision. While the Doctor had said next week, Ian decided that the visit would happen this weekend, tomorrow in fact.

"Tomorrow, Mr Chesterton, my relatives…"

"You've said Harry, but you needn't worry, as I said my friends have a certain affinity with the odd. Now we should get to the headmaster's office."

"Mr Chesterton, the headmaster was concerned that you had…where have you been?" Ian looked around the office past the deputy head. It was empty. "Dudley just been picked up by his father, they were most anxious to discuss today's incident and your handling of it with the headmaster." She said looking at Ian closely. Ian didn't like the tone of the conversation.

"I was just giving young Harry here a breather before the headmaster received him."

She nodded, smiling tightly to Harry.

"Your aunt will be coming to pick you up Harry. I believe you have a class to teach Mr Chesterton."

"Yes…I'll see you Harry."

"Thanks…I mean thank you Mr Chesterton." Harry said after a cough from the deputy head.

Ian walked back to the head's office at the end of the day, just in case, just in case young Harry hadn't been picked up by his aunt, but as he passed the door there was no one in the room.

Departing he met Barbara at the entrance to the school. As they walked back to the ship he outlined the conversation he had with Harry earlier that day.

When they got back to the ship, and found the Doctor in one of the laboratories, doing heaven knew what. Ian told the Doctor what had happened and explained about needing to meet that weekend, rather than the following week. He had thought he would have to fight the Doctor on this, but the Doctor, very much unlike him.

"No Chesterton, on this issue you and I are very much in agreement. I think perhaps we should adjour to the other room to discuss how out 'meeting' will proceed tomorrow, hmm?" The Doctor guided him and the others towards one of the many doors of the ship that Ian had yet to explore.

--//

Ian walked beside the Doctor in their group as Susan led the way. Susan was wearing what she called a power suit, Barbara seemed to know more about it than he did.

In it she seemed a lot more mature than she did when she was assisting them at the school, herself and Barbara would be having a 'talk' with the Dursleys, amongst other things getting Harry his own bedroom they would be telling them what 'could happen' should they continue their mistreatment of him.

Where the Doctor had got all of his information to essentially blackmail the Dursleys Ian decided he'd just put it down to one of the Doctor's mysterious ways.

While Susan and Barbara were 'talking' with the Dursleys, Ian would introduce the Doctor to Harry, he wasn't sure what the Doctor was going to say "reassurance my dear boy Chesterton, explanations, assurance, I have seen far more 'odd things' in my life than you have had…hmmm anyway Chesterton…".

After three knocks the door was wrenched open.

"Mr Dursley, I'm Cherrie Blair, from child services, can I come in?" Susan asked, supposedly her cover name, was a joke, one that no one would get yet. Why she needed a cover name and the rest of them didn't Ian didn't no, but when he asked Susan she just became slightly vague. Barbara had stopped him asking further questions with a stare.

"What'd you want with us, we're normal, perfectly normal. No need for you lot here." He went to slam the door, Susan quickly, faster than Ian could even see placed a hand on the door stopping its movement, it flexed suddenly from the weight of Vernon Dursley.

"We're here about Harry Potter Mr Dursley."

"What the freak…I mean there isn't anyone here, now go away, before I call the police."

"I think Mr Dursley, the police will find I have authority." This was a side to Susan that Ian hadn't witnessed before, Ian stole a glance at the Doctor who was smiling proudly to himself.

Vernon's eyes darted around the street and back to them.

"Fine. Petunia…we have guests." He shouted.

As they walked in, Vernon pointed to the sitting room.

"Where is Mr Potter, Mr Dursley?"

"Outside, doing some work, earning his keep."

Ian shook his head at the man's arrogance.

"My collegues will be keeping an eye on him during our conversation." Susan nodded to the Doctor and Ian.

Ian followed the Doctor down the corridor and through the kitchen out into the backyard, where Harry was on his hands and knees in an old oversized shirt weeding the plants, he was quite dirty and as he approached his hands were red raw.

"Harry."

"Mr Chesterton!" He said looking up from the ground. His face was red, and eyes bloodshot.

"This is my friend."

"Hello Harry my boy, I'm the Doctor. How about we umm, go and have a word over here." He gestured towards some tables and chairs that were under an umbrella.

"'But…Aunt Petunia says I mustn't sit there when I'm dirty…or ever."

"Nonsense, that woman…come along." He said as he walked over and sat himself down in one of the three chairs.

"Chesterton tells me you've had some interesting experiences." Ian watched as the Doctor spoke, much softer, understanding than he did usually, more so than he did with Susan.

Harry looked over at Ian, he nodded. Ian listened as Harry re-told the Doctor everything he had told him as the Doctor listened, not interrupting, just studying the young boy.

As Harry finished speaking the Doctor sat back in thought.

"Am I a freak Doctor?" He asked after a moment.

This ruffled the Doctor. "No! Nonsense dear boy, utter nonsense." He paused and looked at Ian. "Chesterton…If you could a moment."

Ian nodded. "I'll just streatch my legs."

Ian wasn't sure what the Doctor wanted to say to Harry, but considering the lengths he had gone to thus far it was probably personal and the Doctor didn't like to reveal much about his life. The revelation that he and Susan were 'wanders in the fourth dimension' and that one day they might return home was about as much information as Barbara and himself had got from them over the past…however long they had been travelling with the Doctor.

That was another thing, this was home, give or take 20 years, he and Barbara could stay here, re-build their lives, leave the Doctor. He and Barbara had touched on the topic, but while they had more or less worked their way in for this 'mission' (as he had begun to think of it), he wasn't sure he could live here, like this. Barbara felt the same, for all the terror and danger they had faced he saw some of the fun, the wonder in it. This wasn't to say should they be able to get _a little_ closer to their time that they would take it. But 1980s Britain was not a time that he wanted to spend in _now_.

Ian looked back towards the house from the back of the garden where he had wandered to, he was standing beside a large tree, that had what appeared to be claws of a dog around it and saw the Doctor beckoning him back.

When he got back to the house the Doctor was removing an old clay pot, he some how had within his cloak, which the last time Ian checked didn't have pockets.

"Very old, hard to get this, young man."

"What is it Doctor?" Ian asked curiously looking into the nearly full pot.

"Sisterhood Salve…a concotion from…in the vicinity of my home." He smiled and dipped a finger in removing a tiny amount and placed a smidgin on each of Harry's raw hands. "There young man, work that in, your hands will feel years better…" He smiled. "And a bit younger quite possibly." He chuckled to himself. He replaced the clay pot, somewhere within his cloak. Ian resolved to ask him about it later.

"Chesterton, if you could stay here while I check on Susan." Ian watched as the Doctor went inside.

"So, what did the Doctor say?" Ian asked casually, though he was quite curious.

Harry shrugged. "Stuff about a hermit, where he lived." That was as far as he would elaborate. Though even this small piece of information left Ian with more questions than answers about where the Doctor was _actually_ from.

Around five minutes later the Doctor strode back out clutching his lapels.

"Come along, Harry, Chesterton, your relatives wish to speak to you."

Looking at the Dursleys, Vernon in particular looked as though he were ready to explode as he calmly explained to Harry that he would no longer be residing in the cupboard beneathe the stairs, but in Dudley's so called 'second bedroom'.

After making sure that they were indeed moving Harry out of the cupboard the prepared to leave. At the door the Doctor crouched down to Harry's level.

All Ian caught was "…remember what I told you my boy…" Before the Doctor drew himself up to full height and stared at the Dursleys. "And you remember too." He said looking in particular at Petunia who shrank, if possible further away into the house.

As they walked down the street the Doctor announced that it was time to depart.

"What about the children, my classes?" Barbara demanded, the Doctor just smiled at her. "They were going to present this to you on Monday when you arrived." He gave each Barbara and Ian a letter.

Inside it detailed the removal of funding for his and Barbara's classes following the withdrawl of the money that had been donated by 'several parents'.

Ian sighed and looked back at the house as Susan and Barbara walked into the TARDIS.

"Will we ever see him again Doctor?"

"Perhaps young man, perhaps, the universe is filled with chance and improbability. Come along."

Then with a groaning and a sound of the dimesions parting the police box disappeared from the street, leaving it deserted once more.

Once the TARDIS was in flight, and his companions retired the Doctor collected the information regarding Harry Potter and their time in 1980s London. In his lab, in a locked filing cabinet he placed it in amongst a series of other things, the only thing he was left with was a card, with a question mark on it, and a name, his name.

"Meddling, certainly breaking some laws." He muttered to himself throwing the card in and locking the draw.

_--//_

_I really enjoyed writing this first chapter. It's surprisingly easy and fun writing for the original companions Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, plus of course the Doctor and Susan._

_Thanks for reading._


	2. Chapter 2

--

**Chapter 02**

"_Goodbye Susan, goodbye my dear…"_

Ian reflected over those final words of goodbye as the Doctor set the ship in motion. Sometimes the Doctor was at the controls constantly between starting the TARDIS in motion and when they arrived, other times, like now they were taking their time, and considering it was a time machine was a simple thing he considered.

Himself and Barbara had retired to their own particular rooms in the TARDIS, washing and changing following their second run in with the Daleks on a post-apocalyptic Earth. It was amazing how much hadn't changed in such time. It was also amazing how quickly Susan and David had brought themselves together, compared to how Barbara and he were just…he shrugged to himself and walked out into one of the main corridors of the TARDIS, it was odd how familiar everything on this unbelievable ship had become, and how suddenly how quiet things suddenly seemed to be.

As he made his way to the food machine he bumped into the Doctor.

"Ah Chesterton, I was just, I mean I was looking for you, come on, I, you might perhaps, hmm, assist me…?"

"Oh course Doctor, whatever you need." Ian followed the Doctor as they passed _one _of the corridors that lead to the food machine he saw Barbara and shouted out to her and nodded to the Doctor who was making vast strides to the console room.

"So what do you need my help with Doctor?"

"Hmmm, oh yes Chesterton, just read this out for me, I need to concentrate." He thrust a piece of paper into his hands that to Ian looked like a string of mathematical equations written out like one would a sentence, it was written in neat flowing script, though someone had been through it with inkwell pen and changed and amended several calculations. Though much was totally unfathomable to his mind.

"Come on dear boy, begin, this isn't like building a sandcastle."

"Doctor what's this for?" Ian waved the piece of paper.

"Oh," The Doctor looked up from the controls "A visit, a visit, visiting a friend, reconnection is the key…now begin, this is very complicated." The Doctor was leaned over the TARDIS' controls, and began to flick switches and turn dials. "Come on Chesterton." He gestured with his hands to Ian.

Ian looked over and saw Barbara walk in as he started to read the mathematical script.

It was at least 20 minutes before he finished the page.

"Turn over Chesterton there's a good man." Ian sighed and continued reading.

As Ian finished reading, the floor under their feet lurched and then there was the familiar feeling of the TARDIS landing.

"Perfect, perfect, thank you Ian, now we must get ready, hmm?"

"Where Doctor where are we going?"

"I'm sorry? Oh…a visit. Promises Barbara. Should be two years if I got my sums right." He chuckled to himself.

"Doctor." Ian looking across at him. "Where are we?"

"On the corner of Wisteria Walk I think my dear." The Doctor strode back over to the controls of the TARDIS and flicked a button bringing the screen to life. On the screen showed a sign 'Wisteria Walk'. The Doctor smiled to both humans in a very satisfied manner.

Ian thought for several moments, he was sure he'd heard of Wisteria Walk before.

"Privet Drive." Barbara said to herself and looked around for the Doctor but he'd walked off. Before they had a chance to discuss or acknowledge what they had realised the Doctor walked back in carrying a small box with a bow on it.

"Come along." He said as he opened the doors and stepped out.

"Doctor how is it that you have been able to pilot the ship here _twice_ but you cannot return us to our time?" Ian had wondered this himself more than once, but having seen the piece of paper, which didn't appear to be the Doctor's handwriting, which at times was impossible to read.

"Well, Barbara…those notes, were from an associate, breaking one of the laws of my people, to pass me those notes…I altered them, to visit Mr Potter once more. This is as close as I could manage without landing us on Pluto during the fifth dynasty or some nonsense."

Again Ian stayed quiet, this extra piece of the Doctor's past was an interesting and fascinating revelation, that …he realised Barbara was looking at him.

"Penny for your thoughts."

"At the moment a whole pound." He said as he watched the Doctor stride up towards Privet Drive,

"It'll be good to see Harry again, and to make sure those ghastly people have been treating him properly."

"Yes." Ian found himself smiling.

The Dursleys were less than happy to see them.

The Doctor paid them no heed and pushed his way in, checking first the cupboard under the stairs before proceeding up said stairs and stood before the bedroom door that was Harry's, it had two locks, that could only be opened from the outside.

"It's to keep his freakishness in there, especially for his birthday." Ian knew that voice all too well.

"Dudley Dursley." Both he and Barbara said looking around the corner of the stairs.

"They said you were dead." He said looking at them. "Where've you been?"

"No where you would believe, now stop bugg…that is bothering us and go away." The Doctor removed a long aluminium tool. It made a high pitched noise before the door creaked open.

There was a boy sitting with the window open, looking out, he looked even thinner than the last time they saw him.

"Hello my boy Harry." The Doctor said, in the same tone he used when speaking with Susan.

"Doctor?" He turned around eyes wide.

"Mr Chesterton and Ms Wright are here also. Happy 10th Birthday."

Harry couldn't believe it was the Doctor, Mr Chesterton and Ms Wright! On his 10th birthday as well. He'd only found out about his birthday a few years ago when the school had had vaccinations, before then the Dursleys never told him, when he'd asked _once_ they'd just said he wasn't getting anything from them and that Dudley's was the most important birthday.

Miss Wright and the Doctor seemed very, very interested in how he was doing in school (He couldn't do well, not with Dudley around, plus the teachers tried to ignore him, because he _was the weird one_). The Doctor had sent Mr Chesterton off for picnic basket from the 'TARDIS'.

"What's the TARDIS Doctor?"

"Hmm my boy, oh…that's my ship, we travel through time and Spain…space."

"Doctor???" Miss Wright said looking at him worriedly.

"My dear Barbara, tell the child, it is hardly the most unbelievable thing to occur in this world." He said looking at Harry with a curious smile.

Ian had many questions for the Doctor as he walked towards the park that was in between the various houses, he knew where it was, he and Barbara had been for a walk around it more than once the last time they were here.

Many of the questions ranged from where did the food come from in the basket, as once in a while asked the Doctor if all their food _had_ to come from the food machine, but every time he broached the subject with the Doctor he seemed to take it as a personal offence and disappear into the depths of the TARDIS.

To questions about the Doctor, that aside from those small snippets of revelation he doubted he'd ever find out.

When he found Barbara, the Doctor and Harry Potter Barbara seemed to be in the middle of telling Harry about their 'adventure' on Marinus. Harry was listening rapt, Ian looked quizzically at the Doctor,

"Adventure Chesterton, adventure." He said chuckled as he opened up the basket.

"See that's like the TARDIS." Barbara stopped near the end of her story to Harry and pointed to the long baguette that he was removing from the quite clearly not deep enough basket.

"Oh…wow…can I…?" Harry asked as he leaned over to look into the basket. As he did so Barbara caught sight of a scar that had all the time that they had known him been hidden by his long-ish mop of hair.

"How did you get the scar Harry? It wasn't from your cousin was it?" Barbara asked a hint of worry present in her voice.

Ian was about to say something as Barbara asked the question when Harry answered her himself.

"No…I think. I know, I got that when my parents died."

"How did your relatives say they died child?" The Doctor asked, his voice low.

"A car crash." Harry frowned, closing his eyes and trying to both remember and blot out the flashes of remembrance within his mind hidden in dream and memory; a man shouting, his mother, his father and then…pain and…nothing. He shook his head. "I don't think they did…" He said quietly.

"No, dear boy no…" The Doctor trailed off. "Enough of that, time for some lunch and then Chesterton can tell you how he fought the Aztecs, hmm?"

Harry's eyes opened in wonder at the various foods, drinks and fruits that the Doctor uncovered from inside what looked to him to be a normal basket, it had a few things inside it, but nothing like what he had uncovered from it.

Also between mouthfuls of the different and interesting meats and salads he told Barbara (she insisted he call her that instead of 'Miss Wright') about his reading in the library, after she left the school didn't really show them history as detailed as she did. The library was also the only place safe from Dudley and his 'gang' (that was what he was calling it now), he didn't tell them that part.

She seemed very happy with this information.

Later in the day, the Doctor asked Ian and Barbara to leave him and Harry to speak alone.

Harry watched the two former teachers smile to him and walk off some distance, he could see them pointing into the distance at various things, like the new TV antennas and dishes that people have been installing lately.

"Now Harry. I may, I mean I might come and visit you again."

Harry smiled, and then frowned slightly, Ian had said something about this visit being a chance, or something. "But, Ian said…"

"Chesterton doesn't know everything about my life young man." He grumbled, Harry frowned a little more, the Doctor, seeing this smiled a little.

"No fear Harry, I will try to visit again…but you see, I mean, I may that is…if I am different, you will know I am myself…"

Harry wasn't sure he understood a word of what the Doctor said, but he smiled in any case.

As they walked back to Privet Drive Harry asked the question that he'd been wanting to ask since the Doctor had spoken of his 'ship', he was in little doubt that it existed, just the same as the adventures they had had happened.

"Doctor…can I come with you, in your ship?"

"Oh child…" He squatted down with apparent ease to come face to face with him. "You're a young boy, your place, even with those _relatives _of yours is your place for now, don't worry, you have a world of majesty and wonder ahead of you. Now come along."

Harry watched the Doctor stride off towards Privet Drive, he looked to Ian and Barbara for an explanation.

"Harry, our 'adventures' might sound fun, and they are, I've seen things that I could never have even imagined, but I've also seen pain, danger, suffering, these things you should never have to see, wouldn't want to see. Something I'd love to have is a home, in my own time."

"Why can't you stay here Barbara, in this time."

"We're from another time Harry" Ian laughed a small laugh "Another world." He looked at Barbara who smiled in return.

Harry looked between the two, and ran off to join the Doctor.

Harry waved to the three travellers as they walked away from Privet Drive and ran his fingers over the cloak that the Doctor had removed from his basket. _"Susan would have wanted you to have this young man, something of our adventures. One of the good things to come from Skaro."_ It felt so unusual, so different, so alien. Running his hands over it made him think of cities of metal, static electricity and the three time travellers who'd risked their lives to help people, a good thing Harry thought to himself.

--//

_I did briefly think about this being the First Doctor with Vicki, Ian and Barbara or Vicki and Steven or even Polly and Ben. But the end of __The Dalek Invasion of Earth__ is a good counterpoint for this chapter._

_Thanks for reading._


	3. Chapter 3

--

**Chapter 03**

Zoe wandered through the TARDIS, she liked to sometimes, when they were 'travelling through the vortex'. She had often attempted to get the Doctor to quantify the exact physical reality of the vortex through which they travelled, but his answers were always so vague that the defied definition, it was most frustrating.

She liked to walk through the corridors of the TARDIS consumed within her thoughts, cataloguing and filing her and their own recent experiences, Jamie had said she was 'day dreaming', but it was far more of an exact science than _just_ letting her mind and imagination wander through random firing of the synapses.

Inevitably, she arrived in the console room, it was inevitable that she arrived there through her wanderings, no matter how much effort she put into to designing a theoretical random route based on something such as the stochastic process or a more simple extrapolation of pi, she always ended up in the console room.

The Doctor was _not_ at the controls but beneath it, a mass of wires, circuit boards and other assorted technology around him.

Zoe was often perturbed by how simple the TARDIS appeared, yet how complex its operations _had_ to be for it to function as it did.

"Doctor?"

"Ah Zoe, I thought you would be getting changed after all that rain on Earth." He said, his voice muffled from within the console.

"I did, Jamie's asleep. What are you doing?"

"Just a bit of clearing out, pass me the laser spanner would you?" His hand reached out, Zoe looked at the assorted tools that he had laid out, she recognised his sonic screwdriver, a chisel and another odd looking tool. She passed him that.

"Oh that's not it…never mind. I'll be finished in a moment Zoe." A short while later, 5 minutes 43.23 seconds later by Zoe's measurement the Doctor pushed himself away from the underside of the console and stood up, brushing assorted wires, dust and other indeterminate things from his checked trousers.

"There we go." He smiled brushing his hands. "Now let me see." He bent over the controls.

"What were you doing Doctor?" She asked again.

"Just a little bit of clear out Zoe." He said offhandedly.

"Has another piece broken down again?" Zoe asked critically eyeing the _many_ circuits and wires that were on the ground.

"Zoe, the TARDIS is far more than just a machine, it needs care, maintenance. Our recent travels have been varied and wide, a little maintenance every so often makes it a much smoother." He said focusing his attention on her momentarily. "Now, I think just this, and now this, and there…in full control." He stepped back and watched the central column rise and fall.

"Where are we heading now Doctor?"

"It's a surprise." Zoe gave him a look. "Even I don't know, the TARDIS is in full control, a nice little trip to get all the bits and pieces working, stretch the legs a little bit. So to speak."

In an alcove between two shops on High Street in Guildford a 1960s police box groaned into existence, its engines momentarily pulling apart the space time continuum allowing it to materialise. None of the early morning commuters seemed to notice or if they did took no notice of its appearance on the street.

A moment later a small man in checked trousers stumbled out into the street and looked around.

"Ah, lovely" He sniffed the air. "England." He looked around and clapped his hands as he caught sight of a newspaper vendor and patted down his pockets removing a wad of notes, seemingly unconcerned by their value, the newspaper vendor paid him no heed as the man gave him a ten pound note absently saying he could keep the change. There were plenty of weird ones in this neck of the woods.

The Doctor flipped through the paper, reading the articles faster than any human could his eyes flicking over the various pieces detailing the local and international news events, then he say the date as he folded the newspaper over.

"Oh my word, so that's the date." He looked up at the police box for a moment. "You do choose the dates don't you." He muttered to himself as he looked at the box that was far more than a machine then pushed open the door and bustled past Jamie and Zoe.

"Oi, where're you back off to?" Jamie called as the Doctor rushed past them.

"Out you go you to, the weather's lovely! I'll be along in a moment."

Jamie and Zoe shared a look and stepped out into the early morning daylight of a Guildford day.

A few minutes later the Doctor bustled out of the TARDIS shutting it behind him, a box with a red ribbon around it under his arm.

"What's the box for Doctor?" He was elbowed in the side by Zoe.

"It's obviously a gift for someone."

"So _when's _the TARDIS brought us this time Doctor, Zoe said somethin' about you lettin' it go where it wants."

"I said nothing of the sort Jamie! Just that the Doctor had allowed the TARDIS to be random in its landing."

"More random than usual?" Jamie said, though it was more like a statement than a question.

"Come on you two, stop arguing." The Doctor said as he stepped out onto the road making a signaling gesture with his hand, a moment later a black taxi rolled up. "Alright you two, in, in!" The Doctor waved his hand and passed the box he was holding to Zoe as he also climbed in.

"Where to guv'nor?"

"Privet Drive, Little Whining, thank you." The Doctor said as he climbed in slamming the door behind him.

"Right you are guv'nor."

Jamie and Zoe looked at the Doctor as he settled himself into the seat as the taxi moved off.

"Where're on Earth." He said looking out the window.

"We gathered that much Doctor. Who's this for?" Jamie asked motioning the box he held.

"An….acquaintance, a friend, his birthday's not too long now, a week I think…it's been sometime since I saw him." He paused and muttered mainly to himself. "But not long for him I suspect."

Zoe stared at the Doctor having heard everything he said, whether to them or himself. "Who is this person Doctor…is he one of your family?" She asked tentatively, Jamie had said some things about the Doctor's family before, but from what he and the Doctor had said the impression she developed was that he didn't have any.

"Goodness no Zoe! Just a friend, someone I've met a few times in the past…"

"Guv'nor, what number you after?"

"Number four."

"Doctor, these houses all look the same!" Jamie said looking out the window.

"I know Jamie, ghastly isn't it, like gingerbread, all cut out exactly the same." The taxi stopped and the Doctor followed by his companions got out, the Doctor peeled away a large numbered note and handed it to the driver.

"Here you go sir, if you could wait, my friends and I will be back shortly." He grinned. The driver looked from the 50 pound to the oddly dressed grinning man and nodded. This wasn't the first odd little man who'd been in his cab, though he was an odd one out to actually pay in large notes, very large and almost crisp in its newness. He held it up to the early morning sun, checking the watermark, just in case and then tucked it into his pocket.

The Doctor walked up to the front door and rapped on it with his knuckles, ignoring the doorbell which no doubt would play some horrible rendition of an equally bad tune.

When the door opened it revealed a large man, who apart from getting a big bigger hadn't changed, at all from the way the Doctor remembered him.

"What the blazes are you doing here, do you have any idea what time it is?" He all but yelled then he tried to slam the door, the Doctor put his hand firmly on the door stopping it and making it flex under the pressure exerted on it from Vernon Dursley.

"Hello there Vernon, I'm the Doctor."

"The Doctor…he was and old bloke with those, those teachers, he was an old man." He repeated, the Doctor just looked past him towards the stairs. "Time does the strangest things. I'll just go up and see Harry, come on Jamie, Zoe." He beckoned as he started up the stairs.

Jamie shrugged and followed him walking around the man who was huffing and puffing by the door.

"Doctor who is this Harry person, does he know you?"

"I hope he does." The Doctor said as he knocked softly on the door.

"Alright Uncle I'm coming." A muffled voice came from the other side of the door.

"It's not your uncle Harry, it's the Doctor." The Doctor called in a level tone at the door, before turning to Jamie and Zoe. "Jamie, watch out for another…young person, he's a handful, I just want to have a word with Harry." Zoe stepped forward an expectant look on her face. "Alone." He said taking the box out of Zoe's hands as the door opened.

Harry wrenched open the door and looked at the man in checked trousers and coat, holding a box with a ribbon on it, he looked nothing like the Doctor.

"Hello there Harry, do you mind if I come in? Excellent." He said not waiting for an answer as he walked back into Harry's room.

Harry looked at the man as he sat down on the old wooden chair Harry had found in the shed one weekend that he'd been forced to clean it up after Dudley and his friends had messed it up _again_.

"You're not the Doctor." Harry said, standing beside his bed, watching the stranger. The man smiled, a large smile.

"Oh yes I am, do you remember Harry, what I said about my people, about if we might meet again." He gestured down his body.

"He said…that when your bodies get old and tired you change…you mean?" Harry's eyes went wide, when the old Doctor had told him all about the old men in cloaks and the young men in robes lording over the galaxy, he had imagined…Harry wasn't sure what he'd meant, not really, it had seemed so real, yet so other worldly and distant, when the Doctor had told him, almost like a story he was being told, it set his imagination running wild, hearing the stories that Ian, Barbara and the Doctor had told him about their adventures, the Daleks, being an Aztec god, about the Voord and finding the keys and then there was his cloak that the Doctor gave him, Harry stole a glance over at his wardrobe where he had it neatly folded up, some nights he just held it, wrapped around him on the cold nights in winter when he wasn't allowed heating in his room _because _Dudley needed all the heating for when he was watching TV. It always felt so…so alien, so different, sometimes he wasn't sure what it was, a tingling of excitement, also not unlike when he had appeared on the roof of the art building, or when he turned a teacher's hair blue, or other times like that, since the Doctor, Ian and Barbara had departed the second time.

"I see you do remember." He clapped his hands together.

"But, but I thought…" Harry shook his head as he sat heavily onto his bed.

"Well that's jolly good then, here, I know it's a week or so early, but happy 11th birthday." He held out the box to him, Harry accepted it, smiling, the Doctor had been the only person, ever to give him a birthday present, the Durselys never acknowledged his birthday, only to give him more work to do over the school holidays and on weekends each year.

"Go on, open it!" The Doctor, if he was the Doctor said smiling. Harry looked up at him, looking at him in the eyes as he pushed his glasses against his face a little more. It was the eyes that made him believe this was the Doctor, the stormy eyes, old, older than they should be, it comforted Harry knowing that the old man he had met a couple of years ago was this man here before him, that he still lived. Only a small part of him acknowledged that this man, was an alien, but now he believed that assertion a lot more than when he had told him the first time. When he had told him that, he'd just imagined the Doctor's home as a place with mountains, and a great cathedral and old and young people watching over and out at the universe, though some weird telescopes or looking glasses, observing, _never_ doing.

Harry carefully removed the bow and looked into the box, inside was a folded green jacket, it looked like an army jacket.

"A momento of one of my recent 'adventures'." He smiled "Enhanced for usefulness like the TARDIS." Harry looked at him wide eyed. "Err I mean like the picnic basket, useful pockets Harry." Harry placed it beside him, and looked in the box, at the bottom was an envelope with photos in it.

"What are these Doctor?"

"I thought, something to look over, something that might interest you." He said as he stood up to look at the books Harry had on a shelf beside his bed, they were books the librarians at school had given him, ones that they were throwing away or replacing, they were the only teachers who really liked him and didn't care what the Dursleys said. He'd taken Miss Wright…Barbara's advice to learn about things by reading, knowledge was a good thing.

"My word this is an interesting library you have here Harry. Ah Gulliver, a wonderfully spoken man."

Harry nodded as he carefully looked through the photos, there were photos of the Doctor, a man in a kilt, who he was sure he could see outside his door and a woman. Plus another man with a moustache in a military uniform, there was a logo, he was sure he'd just seen…Harry almost dropped the photos as he looked at the jacket that Doctor had given him, on the side was a word, an acronym UNIT. As he continued to look through he vaguely noticed the Doctor step out of the room. There were photos of men, metal men, like robots, but not, walking around London and others dead in a pile.

"They're called Cybermen, wee lethal beasties." Harry looked up at the man before him, he was in a kilt, but had a calm expression on his face.

"Harry these are my two friends, Jamie, and Zoe."

"Hello, how do you do?"

"Doctor, are those the photos from…"

"Yes they are Zoe, I thought they might be more useful out of Isabelle's hands."

"Should you really be giving them around like that?" She asked critically. Harry frowned and went to put them back in the envelope.

"Don't say things like that Zoe, they're a gift Harry, something of a record of our adventures, and of the dangers that ensue during them. Now, it's a nice day! And we're going to go out, get your shoes on and Jamie and Zoe will come with you down stairs." He clapped his hands together and left the room.

Harry looked between the two of them and sighed, placing the jacket and photos back in the box and took them to his wardrobe, grabbing the cloak that was also there he pried away a section of the plyboard between the wardrobe and the wall, there was a small cavity that he had managed to find where he could his certain things, it was either that or the small place under the floorboards he'd found one day when he'd been stuck in his room.

Harry grabbed his tatty sneakers and pulled them on, tucking the oversized shirt into his pants and looked to the two people before him expectantly.

"Ye ready te go?"

Harry nodded.

"I'm sorry I was so concerned before, I wasn't sure that's all. I'm Zoe." She held out her hand. Harry took it shaking it, there weren't very many girls who would speak to him at school, they all knew what would happen if they did and Dudley and his 'gang' got word of it, Piers had already been suspended for hitting a girl earlier this year.

"That's okay." Harry said smiling slightly as he followed Jamie down the stairs and out the door, the Doctor came out a moment later.

"There, I've told your uncle that we'd be out for the day, he can make his own breakfast."

"They make you make their breakfast?" Zoe asked shocked. Harry nodded he didn't add that he usually had to help make lunch (of which he _might_ get some) and dinner (of which he might get a little or more likely something else, that he had to eat quickly before helping Aunt Petunia make the others' dinner).

The Doctor ushered them into a waiting taxi, Harry didn't quite catch where they were going before they departed.

--//

Harry sat back against his bed and waved once more to the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe, he had had an…an amazing day, a brilliant birthday, even though it was still a week away. The Doctor had taken them around all the old buildings around Surrey, he'd never noticed or never had anyone to show him around and the Doctor told them so much about each place they went to as though he'd been there, though Jamie said he probably had _or_ he was making it up.

Harry leaned down to untie his new shoes, more of a boot, that Jamie had insisted the Doctor buy for him, they were certainly better than anything he'd ever owned.

Jamie seemed to think that this was an important thing, a good set of shoes. Though Zoe had added _"For all the running we do._" The Doctor has shushed her at that point.

When they had been walking around one of the castles Jamie had taken him aside while Zoe and the Doctor had been off…talking about something.

"Ye've known the Doctor for a while then Harry?" Harry nodded.

"You've ben travelling with him for a while then?"

"Eye, seen some beastly things."

"He's mentioned, I've met other people before you know?" Harry asked, running his hand over the rough surface of the castle wall.

"Yeah, he has mentioned before."

"Were you…" Harry started. "Were you there when he changed?" Jamie shook his head.

"I had a wee conversation with Ben and Polly, they saw it, said he changed completely, you knew him, before?"

"Yeah, he's so different now, but then there's something…" Harry trailed off.

"He'll get himself all worked up, like a storm coming across the moor, and then 'e just goes quiet, bringing things to an end." Jamie said in a low voice watching the Doctor.

"Yeah."

"And he's _always_ walking into trouble."

"Doesn't sound much like the Doctor." Harry said with a laugh. "Come on, we'd better get back to them before he starts arguing with the historians about what they've got wrong.

"_That_ sounds like him Harry."

Harry grinned to himself.

He loved hearing about Zoe's homecity, to think she was from the _future_ and Jamie from the _past_, and not just the 60s, like Ian and Barbara, but the real past, history, real history.

When Jamie spoke of his time before he met the Doctor, of the Battle of Culloden, it brought chills to Harry's neck, that amount of fighting, of death. Even though he'd subsequently read up on the Aztecs and their more sacrifices and various practices, hearing some of it from Ian and Barbara, at the time was just a tale of an adventure, not something that people _lived_ their lives through.

Jamie's reminiscences brought everything back into sharp focus. It made history _feel_ real, in all its scary, bloody realness. History wasn't just facts in a book, it was everything, the small people, not just the notable names, but everyone who was there had a tale, an experience.

--//

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe waved at Harry up in the window before making their way back to their taxi.

"Doctor…" Zoe started to say as she looked up and around.

"Yes Zoe?"

"Should there really be so many birds around?"

The Doctor stopped in his tracks and looked where Zoe was pointing, there were _a lot_ of owls, sitting on the power lines and trees, very odd, that that they were out in the relative daylight.

"Oh my word…I think it's time for us to get going now Zoe, Jamie, into the taxi."

"But Doctor…"

--//

_In case anyone is trying to place where this happens for the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe, the dialogue between Zoe and the Doctor is the clue. _

_It's set just after __The Seeds of Death__. _

_A slightly different spin on all this from the previous chapter. _

_I considered writing all the 'what we've been doing' conversations between the Doctor, Zoe, Jamie and Harry, but they can be very difficult conversations to write and it would become a re-hashing of their previous adventures with Harry's reactions added in and that wasn't something I had in mind for this story._

_Some of the meetings with the Doctor will be brief and reflected upon (this chapter for instance) others will be longer and more detailed, various characters for me lend themselves differently to the writing process. _

_Obviously this is meeting occurs just before Harry gets his letter and things will kick into gear soon._

_Thanks for reading. _

_Harry will be meeting the Doctor again, sooner than he thinks…_


	4. Chapter 4

--

**Chapter 04**

Jo walked down one of the main corridors in UNIT HQ, a bag slung over her shoulder. After their fraught experience on the _SS Bernice_ the Doctor had brought the TARDIS back to UNIT HQ stating that his repairs had been 'relatively successful', except that they hadn't arrived at the 'famed blue planet of Metabelis III'. The bag she had slung over a shoulder had some clothing and essentials, just what the Doctor had asked her to get.

_Flashback._

The Doctor opened to door of the TARDIS gesturing. "Back home Jo, UNIT HQ."

"I thought we were going out to explore, now that the Time Lords have given you back the TARDIS and your knowledge of time travel theory?" Jo said looked back to the Doctor curiously.

"They have Jo they have, now…" He trailed off for a moment and then seemed to remember something he'd forgotten before turning to Jo. "Jo, could you gather some essentials, an extended mission, you could say."

Jo held back asking the Doctor what for, he seemed concerned and uncomfortable, the former she was used to, the latter she was much less used to seeing on the Doctor's features, he was always so confident when working with the Brigadier, or on his own, with her help.

"Of course Doctor, are we going some where in the TARDIS?" She tried tentatively.

"Yes Jo, thank you, I'll explain everything when we're on our way, I just need to get a few files from my lab." Then he followed her out of the TARDIS.

_Present_

Jo walked into the Doctor's lab expecting to find him, and the TARDIS within and found neither. There was the slight marks on the floor where the TARDIS usually resided in the lab, with the requisite scuff marks caused my the various UNIT soldiers manoeuvring it in and out when in the past the Doctor had needed it outside of UNIT HQ.

Looking around her eyes fell on a card lying against a Bunsen burner.

_In the garage_

It said in the Doctor's neat flowing handwriting.

Jo picked up her bag again and walked out of the lab and down the corridor towards UNIT's underground garage, UNIT had several in fact, above ground and underground garages, the outside above ground ones were a short walk away from the main UNIT HQ storing all the UNIT land rovers and all the other equipment they used, plus some of the Doctor's experiments in large sheds. But there was also a smaller garage located underneath UNIT HQ where the Doctor last parked Bessie prior to their trip in the TARDIS, she assumed that was how they were getting to wherever they were going rather than the TARDIS.

As she entered the brightly lit underground garage she immediately saw the TARDIS parked incongruously in one of the parking spots, and Bessie in an opposite one. The TARDIS door was open and Jo assumed that the Doctor was inside, as she walked over she caught a glance of various files spread out over Bessie's bonnet.

Jo picked up one the cover said; 'No eyes only, Top Secret'. Jo felt a small tingle down her back. She'd only seen a few files like this, more than most people, even those who worked in the security services, they were files so top secret they technically didn't exist.

UNIT dealt with plenty of top secret things, but most of them, given how UNIT was integrated with the UN did exist in some form or another.

The top summary of the report read; _'Summary of investigation by MI5 and MI6 into activities of __Voldemort__, (see reports 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7 for breakdown of crimes). See accompanying report 'breakdown and analysis of __Statute of Secrecy'__._

Jo stared at the report for a moment, she had never heard of a Voldemort and UNIT usually got a breakdown of a lot of the international investigations, generally because there was often an alien (or a Master) explanation or trail connected to many of them.

Jo closed it and looked around at the other files, there was the mentioned report into the Statute of Secrecy, whatever that was, she dropped the bag that she was still half carrying and picked up the file.

A lot of it was just basic introduction into which section of MI5 had compiled the report, who had been consulted and other things like that, it like the first was also labelled 'No Eyes Only'.

As she leafed through the report, which was more like a book, it had been wire bound and went into great detail.

This Statute of Secrecy thing seemed to have begun sometime in the 1690s, but there was a lot of complicated cross-talk alluding to various other reports, or parts of the report she was skimming through.

"Dry isn't it." Jo jumped, the Doctor was standing over he watching her read.

"Don't do that Doctor, you could have given me a heart attack."

"Sorry Jo, I see you've found the _beyond_ top secret files?" The Doctor said with traces of irony and humour in his voice.

"Sorry Doctor" She said a guilty smile "But you did leave them here for _anyone_ to find." He smiled it that knowing way, it made her suspect that _he_ left them there deliberately for her to find, still subtly teaching her in his own way. Just as being tied up by megalomaniacs, locked up and shut in a cell had made her use her escapology in ways she hadn't thought she'd ever seriously need to. Her uncle really hadn't explained exactly what she was getting into being the Doctor's 'new assistant'. Not that it was something she would ever give up.

"Jo?"

"Sorry Doctor, caught up in my thoughts."

"Very good, now, bring the files and we should get going." Jo nodded and gathered up the files and picked up her bag preparing to get into Bessie and then saw the Doctor walking over to the TARDIS.

"I thought we were going in Bessie Doctor?"

"No, no Jo, though Bessie is coming with us, come on." The Doctor lead her through the TARDIS, she chucked her bag into a room the Doctor indicated she should use and continued to follow him down a corridor, at some point the reached a set of double doors that he pushed open, inside was a large empty room, with another set of doors on the other side of the room.

"Wait here, I'll return in a moment." He said mysteriously and disappeared through the doors they had entered Jo poked her head out of the doors and watched him walk up the corridor. A few moments later she felt the hum and movement of the TARDIS change, indicating that they had taken off, a moment (or less) later the hum of the TARDIS changed to the landing and in front of her Bessie materialised.

Jo stared open mouthed at it, she couldn't believe it, she just stared before realising she was about to drop the files in surprise.

"_Jo?"_ The Doctor's voice asked throughout the room from some invisible speakers.

"Yes Doctor?"

"_Has Bessie arrived in one piece?_"

"Yes Doctor how…" Her question was cut off.

"_Come back to the console room and I'll explain._"

"Everything I hope." Jo said to herself still clutching the files as she walked out.

The Doctor was already moving around the console pulling levers and ever so often studying an little old leather book; diary sized that he had propped on the console. Jo put the files down on a bench on one side of the room and then walked over to look at the book that the Doctor was studying, it appeared to just have a series of numbers and mathematical formulas, though it seemed to make sense to the Doctor, she could see his own hand writing over the original writing.

"Doctor just what is going on?" She asked, watching as he moved around the console, he looked up for a moment.

"Just a second Jo, let me…" He flicked a few more leavers and the central column began to move and she felt the familiar hum of the TARDIS change as they dematerialised from UNIT HQ.

"Well? Where are we going, how did you get Bessie to materialise in the TARDIS and…" Jo paused thinking of a third question. "Why did I need to bring some clothing?"

"All very good questions Jo, as for Bessie, she didn't materialise, I merely dematerialised the TARDIS and re-materialised it around her." He made some grabbing motions with his hands. "A rather useful function, much more simpler than reconfiguring the doors."

"Why would we need to bring Bessie with us?"

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck, Jo smiled to herself, whatever it was that they were going to do was going to be interesting.

"To visit a friend Jo, a young friend I have known for a while, he's just gone through a revelation of sorts."

"And we need the TARDIS to get there?"

"Yes Jo, a dozen or less years in your future." He looked away from her and returned to the TARDIS. "Ah we're landing, good old girl." He patted the TARDIS console.

Jo stared at him, aside from giving her some vague information in addition to the 'dozen or so years' line he hadn't revealed very much to her.

The console stopped moving and Jo stood by the doors waiting for the Doctor to open them up, he flicked the switch for the monitor on the wall, it showed a large courtyard.

"Ah, exactly where I wanted. Come along Jo."

Jo followed the Doctor through to the room where Bessie was, the Doctor operated a control box and the doors at the other end of the room opened.

"Come on Jo, no time to dawdle."

The Doctor started the engine and started driving forward into the blackness…and then they were outside, Jo looked behind her, they had just driven through the TARDIS doors, which was impossible, they weren't big enough to fit Bessie through.

"How? How did you do that?"

"Elementary transdimensional engineering my dear Jo." As if that explained everything.

The Doctor got out of Bessie and walked back over to close the TARDIS doors, it gave Jo a chance to look around, she was sure she'd been here before, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. It was a large house and courtyard, it looked like…then she remembered as a spark of memory hit her, about 2 months ago they had attended a dinner in London for something, or something else and it had finished rather late, too late to return to UNIT HQ, the Doctor had offered her his house to stay in, his London property.

The Doctor returned a moment later.

"Ready to go Jo?"

"No." Jo said folding her arm, the Doctor looked across at her slightly worried.

"No?"

"No, I want to know where we are and what precisely we're doing here."

The Doctor scratched the back of his neck again, this time looking uncomfortable before reaching behind their seats and giving Jo a bound together A4 report.

Across the front read 'Prime Minister's Eyes Only' and beneath it 'Introductory Briefing'.

"What sort of briefing Doctor?"

"Just have a browse Jo and I'll try explain." The Doctor said as he started up the engine, Jo turned over the first page.

She wasn't expecting to read what she did.

She read through the document faster than she initially thought she would, though there were several maps, diagrams and plans of what seemed to be buildings and spaces around England.

Then there was its subject matter.

Jo closed it, even though they were travelling moderately fast there wasn't much perceptible wind noise, one of the Doctor's gadgets no doubt.

"When we were in Devil's End _you_ said there was no such thing as magic." Jo asked accusingly.

The Doctor seemed to be pretending to concentrate on driving.

"Well Doctor?"

"I did clarify my position just before the fertility dance."

Jo blushed.

"Is this correct Doctor?"

"It was the report given to the Prime Minister, yes."

"Is there a Ministry for Magic?"

"Yes." He said simply.

"This friend we're going to see is he a…a wizard?" She asked tentatively.

"I believe that is the term they use for the specific outcrop of power they utilise."

"Is it magic Doctor?"

"Not in the usual sense Jo, it's more of a science. A tele-psychic projection of energy." He smiled to himself at something.

"Are these aliens, like Azal and Chronovore the Master tried to use?" She tried as she attempted to wrap her head around what she had just read, and what the Doctor was saying.

"No. My friend, I think is 11."

Jo opened her mouth to ask how the Doctor could have friend, who was 11, yet they were in _her_ future, but the Doctor continued, seemingly knowing her question.

"I met him a few lifetimes ago, he's an important individual, too much pressed upon him at youth, especially now that he knows much of this. _I _didn't know the truth when I first met him, not everything." The Doctor said, his voice taking on the wistful quality it did when the Doctor spoke of his 'childhood'.

Much of the rest of the journey was silent as Jo read into further detail the other files that the Doctor had with them, Jo found herself staring at the words on the pages, their cool statements plain on the pages, as though they were talking about peace talks or the latest Mars missions.

A short while later the Doctor slowed down from their dangerous (if it had been anyone but the Doctor driving) speeds and she looked around. All the houses were the same, with same driveways and gardens, Jo wrinkled her nose, they weren't similar in the classic sense, these had been deliberately almost forced to be exactly the same.

She looked over to the Doctor who had a similar expression.

"Like sausages Jo, all the same."

Jo nodded, if this was the future of housing, she was glad that she'd put most of her UNIT cheque into her own house, that felt like a house not these places.

They stopped outside what looked like the most identical of all the houses if such a thing were possible.

The Doctor looked at the pristine garden, a fixed grim expression on his face, he handed Jo a folded pass. It was one of their UN passes, they used for functions where they didn't say they were from UNIT.

"Follow my lead Jo." He said as he got out of Bessie and strode purposefully toward the front door, knocking loudly on it.

The door was wrenched open to reveal a rotund man who looked between them. "Who are you, what do you want?" He said as he took in the Doctor's clothing. "You're one of those freaks?" He sneered.

The Doctor held his cool expression and opened his pass, flashing it in the man's face.

"My name is Doctor John Smith, this is Miss Grant, we're from the UN Mr Dursley, we're here to pick up Mr Harry Potter for the remained of the summer and to deliver him to transport to his education."

"You what?"

"Do we need to repeat ourselves Mr Dursely?" Jo said, trying to match the Doctor's cool professional conduct.

"You, you're taking the boy?"

"Yes, for the remainder of the summer. We will be speaking with him and then…" The Doctor paused.

"Then you're keeping him away from us?"

Jo tried to hide her shock at the man's greedy eyed eagerness, the Doctor had said these were his friend's relatives and that they were less than good.

"As his legal guardians he will be returned from school to your home, following his first distance education experience, we've been informed you would be less than amicable." The Doctor finished by barging through the door and walking up the stairs. Jo had a quick look around the house, it all seemed very…pristine, proper.

The Doctor got to the door and looked at it, it had an extra lock on it since the last time he was here, he extracted his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and swiftly unlocked all the locks and knocked on the door.

"I can't do anything uncle about his tail!" Shouted a voice from behind the door. Jo exchanged the look with the Doctor but he seemed just as puzzled.

"Harry, it's the Doctor, can I come in?" The Doctor said just above a standard level, not enough to be heard at the bottom of the stairs, the door was wrenched open a moment later.

A thin boy with messy hair and very loose old clothing stood there, eyes wide in what looked like uncomfortable glasses, looking over both of them.

"Doctor?" He asked, uncertainly of him.

"Yes Harry, it's me I know, you know that is that I've changed a little since…"

"A couple of weeks ago."

"Good grief, is it really only that long ago?" The Doctor said, mostly to himself.

"Where did you meet the Hermit?" He asked watching the Doctor's expression, the Doctor's face broke into a smile.

"Near my house, when I was a boy. Good Harry, this is Jo by the way."

"Pleasure to meet you Harry." Jo reached forward and shook his hand, as she got close she could see his bright green eyes that much more closely, and a strange scar on his forehead.

"Gather up all your stuff Harry."

"Why Doctor?"

"We're taking you away, for the rest of the summer, I thought, after your awakenings of the world of magic you might like a more…open environment until school begins." The Doctor said.

"You know? About magic?"

"Yes, of course, some preparatory reading, just in case so…"

"My trunk is locked downstairs in the cupboard, Uncle Vernon said…" Harry trailed off. "…Said he didn't want it in here. He let me keep Hedwig here though." Jo and the Doctor looked to where an owl was sitting in a cage watching them.

"Fascinating." The Doctor walked across the room and opened the window and then went over to the cage. "Fascinating creatures owls, very intelligent." He said as he looked into the eyes of the white bird. "Do you think you can follow us?" A few travels ago Jo would have said something about the Doctor talking to birds, but now, now she just watched and believed that the Doctor spoke and went to help Harry take the remainder of his clothing into an old bag.

"Are these all your clothes Harry?"

"Yes, all Dudley's old clothes."

"Something to sort our later I think Jo. Harry, Hedwig will meet us at our destination if that is alright with you?" The Doctor asked as he opened the cage, Hedwig flew over to Harry, landing on the chest of drawers and hooted. Harry looked at the owl that he had known for a week and nodded and watched as she flew out the window.

Harry followed the Doctor down the stairs and watched him remove a long cylindrical device from his pocket, the shape he didn't recognise, but it sounded like the Doctor's sonic screwdriver that he'd used the last time he'd visited.

"Come on Harry, let's get your things outside." Jo cast a look backward to the Doctor was facing Vernon Dursley again.

"We're leaving now Mr Dursley, remember Mr Potter will be returned here following his education at the end of this school year, throughout that time will we be looking into your past treatment of the young man and keeping a close eye on you for some time. Do I make myself clear?" The Doctor said, picking up Harry's trunk as though it weighed nothing.

"P-p-perfectly clear Doctor Smith." The man stuttered.

Jo watched as the Doctor walked along the path back to Bessie where she and Harry were waiting, placing Harry's trunk carefully down on one of the rear seats.

"In you get Harry, Jo, time we're away from this place." The Doctor looked around grimly.

Jo sat into the backseat, receiving a warm smile from the Doctor as Harry got into the front seat alongside the Doctor.

"So, how did you find out Harry, a letter?"

"Hundreds of letters Doctor! Uncle Vernon took us away to this tiny little island and this man came, he's called Hagrid from Hogwarts!"

"School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"You know?" Harry asked. Jo could hear everything very easily, the Doctor having engaged his wind noise reduction gadget as they weaved through the traffic that was present around them.

"I know now, I've been working with the government. It's allowed me to do some research, to confirm some theories."

Harry nodded, seemingly taking in this information. Jo couldn't quite tell how uncomfortable he was (as she was seated behind him) but Harry seemed to be quietly digesting the information.

"So what happened?" He asked after several minutes.

"Happen Harry?" The Doctor asked curiously.

"To Jamie and Zoe and…" He trailed off.

Jo's eyes went wide, the Doctor had mentioned those names once or twice, but Harry seemed to be implying about the Doctor's appearance, the Brigadier had mentioned he could change but she'd never heard him really discuss it.

"I'm sorry Doctor I didn't mean to…" He started quickly after the moment silence.

"No, no, Harry. It must be confusing to see me one moment and then a couple of weeks later a different person."

"It's better than Uncle Vernon, he's just awful all of the time, better now that I have a room."

The Doctor nodded and was silent for a few more moments.

"They returned to their own times…my people returned them." The Doctor said with audible distaste in his voice.

There was silence for another few moments, as Harry seemingly composed another question.

"The…Time Lords?" The Doctor nodded at his question. "They changed your body?"

"Very astute reasoning Harry my dear boy, very astute indeed, we'll make a thinker out of you in no trouble." The Doctor chuckled and then went onto add "Do you know I recently met the clown and the old man."

Harry laughed. "'Clown'? He wasn't that old, he was younger than you!"

The Doctor chuckled.

"So how? Isn't that against…your people's laws?"

"Only in the direst of emergencies, it happened recently…"

Jo smiled as the Doctor described their recent encounter with Omega to the avid Harry Potter. It seemed very clear that this young boy had known the Doctor for some time and had obviously shared much of his history with him.

--//

Jo closed the door to the room that would be Harry's room for the next month until he attended school, it was one of the house's many spare rooms, with its own en-suite bathroom.

After the journey back to the house and an early meal the Doctor had asked her to help Harry settle in while he…went off somewhere.

Jo padded back down the stairs into the lounge room where the Doctor was sitting, a bottle of wine on a tray beside him.

"Ah Jo, how is our young friend settling in?"

"He's a little overwhelmed by it all, though not I see with you." She fixed him with a stare, he did have the good graces to appear a little off put.

"Come on Jo, you know I have other friends, whom I have a shared history with. Would you care for a glass, it really is an understated yet punchy drop."

Jo mused for a moment before answering. "Fine, a small glass."

Jo sat quietly for a few while occasionally sipping at her wine glass, which held a moderate volume of wine, hardly a small amount in any case.

"You see Jo, I met Harry Potter some years ago in his timeline, and several years ago in my own, even then I knew that he would have a great burden on his shoulders…"

--//

Harry stared out the window into the courtyard, it was early, that was how he always had to wake up; early enough to cook the Dursleys their breakfast and maybe eat a little before Dudley rolled out of bed for his three servings of bacon and fried eggs.

He ran a hand through his damp hair as he looked out the window again, making sure to himself that this wasn't a dream, he'd had several moments like this over the past week or so.

With all the letters and then Hagrid and Diagon Alley, magic, his wand and Hedwig…she was in the other room, _his_ bedroom.

He was still amazed that the Doctor had come by so soon, but in another body, the last time he had changed he had said it was necessary, that through his experience he'd 'worn himself a bit thin', but this time, this time the Doctor seemed…different about the whole experience, after all he had been forced into it and then meeting himself or him selves again against _Omega_ the way the Doctor spoke about him.

Outside was his _TARDIS_ it seemed so normal, yet not, all of this he felt relaxed around the Doctor that he never felt anywhere else. When Hagrid had taken him through Diagon Alley he'd felt everyone's eyes on him.

Now at least he understood why. He looked at himself in the mirror, running a finger over the scar on his forehead before shrugging and going back into the bedroom to change into his least baggy and wornout clothing.

Downstairs he could hear the voices of Jo Grant and the Doctor.

"Morning Harry." Jo smiled at him as she took a bite of a piece of toast.

"Good Morning Miss…"

"Jo please." She said around a mouthful of toast.

"Please refrain from speaking around your breakfast Jo." The Doctor tutted.

"Sorry Doctor." She said with a little smile.

"Good to see you're an early riser Harry."

"I have to be."

"Why?" Jo asked now free of toast.

"The Dursleys." Jo looked over to the Doctor who scowled slightly.

--//

Harry leaned back into the back seat of the car, after breakfast the Doctor had shuffled them out of the house insisting that they needed to go and get him some new clothes.

"So Harry how did you meet the Doctor?" Jo asked after a moment, they were separated from the driver completely. The Doctor had said he had to organise some things.

Harry smiled, meeting the Doctor hadn't really been the first thing, it was meeting Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright and then the Doctor…some of the things he'd told him, it had been…amazing.

He told Jo just the same, she seemed like Ian, Barbara and Jamie and Zoe, who'd all travelled with the Doctor. As he told her about how he'd known the Doctor she told him, the places, the people, the aliens…

--//

Harry followed Jo in the door, unburdened by boxes and bags, all the shops they'd been to assured them that they would deliver their purchases. Most of the day had been a discovery for both himself and Jo in amongst the day she explained she hadn't been to London for…some time, it didn't seem like a lot, especially since Ian and Barbara had also been out of their times when he had met them.

"Ah Harry, come along, sit down there." The Doctor gestured a chair in front of an odd looking contraption.

"Doctor?" Jo started curiously as the Doctor sat down at the metal device.

"Yes Jo?"

"What is it?"

"Ah. It's from the planet Delphon, they're a race that communicate with their eyebrows, also they're also known for their optic surgical devices, I knew I had one of these in the TARDIS, somewhere."

"Doctor?" Harry spoke up worriedly staring at the odd shaped devices.

"Harry young man, I was thinking, with your new school and magic and so forth, that they might be a slight hindrance to you." The Doctor tapped the bridge of his nose, making Harry touch his own, where his glasses sat.

"My glasses?" He asked.

"Yes, with this I can perfectly correct your eyesight."

"Like with lasers Doctor? I read a research paper when we were in Switzerland about it."

"Yes that's correct Jo, though nothing so crude as lasers, this technique won't be trialed until at least the late 2900s on Earth."

"So I won't need my glasses?"

"No Harry." The Doctor smiled as Harry leapt forward and hugged him, the Doctor patted him on the back.

"Now just sit back Harry old chap and we'll get this worked out in no time. Don't be scared, I need to activate a force field to hold you steady through the procedure."

Jo saw Harry tense, even before the Doctor activated the force field.

"It's alright Harry we're both here and it's only for a little while."

Harry nodded quickly.

--//

Jo found herself in a similar situation as the previous night, sharing a different bottle of wine with the Doctor discussing her day out with Harry.

"So Doctor what did you do all today, you can't have spent it looking for your eyesight machine?"

The Doctor mused staring into his wine glass.

"Just some research."

"Into Harry?"

"Into Harry, magic and Voldemort."

"I thought you had the briefings from…"

"Jo that was from when you're from, up to date information is what I need, fortunately contacts like mine stick around, mostly gaining even higher positions, or lower as the case may be."

Jo just nodded, she knew the Doctor went off to London, (before he'd regained the use of the TARDIS) and other places, according to the Brigadier the Doctor was a member of several clubs around Britain, not just London and had had a meal (or shared wine tips) with many influential people.

"Can one of your friends do something about his family, from what Harry has said they sound unbearable."

"They are Jo, they are. Only small things I'm afraid Jo." He sighed.

After several minutes of silence she spoke up again. "I nearly forgot" she patted down her jacket pockets, it had been and oddly cool summer's day, though not one that nessecitated a large coat for a day's shopping. "Your card back." The Doctor looked and smiled.

"Keep it Jo, emergencies or…keep it for a rainy day." He reached over for the bottle. "Another drink?"

"No thank you Doctor, 3 glasses of whatever red this is enough for me."

"Quite right, everything in moderation, you know that's what I told my old friend…" Jo grinned to herself and settled into the chair, the Doctor's "my old friend" stories were always enjoyable and the way he told them really felt like who ever it was, was in the room with them.

--//

Harry looked around in wonder at the large steam lorry and leaned forward to read the plaque.

The Doctor had brought him and Jo here, according to the Doctor it was a private museum of an associate from one of his clubs.

What exactly it was a museum of the Doctor hadn't really commented, just saying that he could have free reign to look around. There were a few other people.

From what Harry could tell everything in this large old warehouse, the museum had been involved in classic robberies, or murders or something else. When he'd told the Doctor what he thought he'd just smiled remarking "Very good deduction Harry." Though Jo had seemed very shocked at the very idea.

Harry looked around and saw Jo and the Doctor over at the other side of the room talking.

Harry walked onto the next thing, a steampowered car when he felt a presence behind him.

"Good day Mr Potter." Harry turned around slowly and saw him, he'd met him a few times before, probably about the same amount of times as the Doctor.

"Magister!" Harry exclaimed, quietly and looked up at the man who was smiling as he offered his gloved hand to Harry who took it shaking it.

"How are you? I mean…" Harry started before stopping.

"Fine, fine, why young man?"

"I mean this means you escaped from prison?" Harry asked tentatively.

Magister chuckled. "Yes, of course. Your received my letter then?"

Harry grinned. "Yeah it scared Dudely so much he tripped down the stairs! But…"'

"But?"

"I didn't know how to write back to you, I thought you might want someone to talk with, you know when you were locked up like that…" Harry said slowly. He knew all about being locked up against his will. Magister patted him on the back.

"I had company Mr Potter. Now, have you been practicing what I taught you?" Harry nodded.

He'd met Magister a time after the Doctor had left, Magister said he'd come as a specialist working with children at the school, but after the first or so lessons Harry realised that Magister was…different, considering he stared at everyone and they very quickly started doing their work without making any noises or anything. Except him, he could do the work, just not the way the Magister had ordered.

Shortly after that the Magister told him about himself, and that he knew the Doctor, they were friends…of a sort he'd said.

The Magister had visited him occasionally, teaching him some mental defenses and other things. Magister had helped him not have the bad dreams any more, and the other things he'd taught him, not that he could do much; stop Dudley from kicking his door whenever he walked past. Altering behaviour the Magister had called it initially. Harry was impervious to most forms according to the Master and therefore a perfect candidate to learn.

"Of course, all the time! Dudley doesn't kick my door any more!" The Magister chuckled.

"Very good, very good Mr Potter. I see you've been made aware of your magical heritage." Harry looked around.

"How?"

"The wand in your inner pocket, shows a slight indentation on the outside, most would think you're just carrying around a pen, or a knife." Magisater chuckled.

"You're not most though are you?" Harry smiled as he said it.

"Ah such praise from the youth." The Magister said wistfully.

"Did you manage to free the lizard fish people things?"

"Yes…and no…"

"Did you kill people?" Harry asked after a moment, it was one of the truths of his…association with the Magister, he had said after their establishment of a friendship of sorts that he was unlike…and like the Doctor in many ways and the Doctor was also often like him. Harry felt upon knowing this that he should have been scared of the Magister, but his frankness, his truthfulness, and his honesty about these things made him trust the Magister some what.

"Some, but the humans were in a far more murderous mood than I was Mr Potter."

Harry looked away looking back to the car.

"I see you're here with the Doctor and Miss Grant."

"Yeah, they got me from the Durselys, the Doctor also fixed my eyesight!" The Magister bent down to look him in the eyes.

"Yes, I see…Delphon technology, 14th span if I'm not mistaken…"

--//

Jo looked away from where the Doctor was chatting with Sir…someone and across the room to where Harry was…chatting with…She did a double take, her eyes widening, it couldn't be…

"Doctor!"

"Just a moment Jo."

"But Doctor! It's Harry!" The Doctor paused for a moment stepping away from his colleague.

"Yes Jo?"

"That's Harry, and that's the Master!" Jo said pointing across the room.

"So it is." He said and started off on a quick stride towards them.

--//

"Speak of the him and he cometh…." Magister said, Harry also turned as the Doctor and Jo came running up to them.

"Ah Doctor and Miss Grant, fancy meeting both of you here at the same time!"

"Harry, come over here quickly." Jo said with some urgency, though not moving beyond where the Doctor stood.

"Why?"

"That's the Master!"

"Oh…so it was you who…oh." Harry said after a moment as he recalled the Doctor telling him that UNIT had put a master criminal in jail.

"Yes indeed Mr Potter it was the Doctor who put me in prison. A short stay I must admit under guard of Britain's outsourced jailers." He smirked to himself.

"That was UNIT that put you in jail." The Doctor said carefully and then looked to Harry. "You know the Master Harry?"

"Mr Potter here and I have been, long standing acquaintances."

"But what would you want with him?"

"Perhaps I just wanted an associate who wouldn't attempt to lock me up or shoot at me whenever they saw me?"

The Doctor snorted.

"Mr Potter has several unique attributes that some might see exploited Miss Grant and the Doctor's _teachings_ are somewhat limited in some respects. Perhaps I am an acquaintance of Mr Potter for the same reason the Doctor is."

"I think you should leave now Master." The Doctor said coolly.

"Really Doctor?" The Master squatted down to be face to face with Harry, removing a hand-bound leather book from his trim black outfit. "A late birthday gift Mr Potter, a translation I did myself, with some useful notes and annotations, Sun Tzu was a bit of a bore sometimes."

Harry ran his hands over the cover it felt old, he could smell the ancient leather of the cover as he did so.

"Thank you Magister!" Harry held out his hand. The Magister hadn't ever been one for hugs. He shook it, standing back up to face the Doctor.

"A product of my imprisonment. Good day Doctor, Miss Grant. Be seeing you Mr Potter." He patted Harry's shoulder as he walked away. Harry fancied he could hear the sounds of the Magister's TARDIS in the distance.

Harry looked between Jo and the Doctor and slipped the book into one of his pockets.

"Well, I think after all that excitement some lunch is called for." The Doctor said after an extended amount of silence.

--//

Jo was unsettled in her usual position later that night, throughout the rest of the day the Doctor had refused to talk about who they had seen at the museum and Harry's casual association with him.

"Doctor it was the Master, with Harry!"

"I noticed Jo, I saw as you did the Master."

"And? It's the Master Doctor."

"Whom Harry has known for possibly as long as I have, and obviously shares some affection for the young man."

"You can't seriously think it's alright, he's evil!"

"Evil is a very strong word Jo, the Master is many things, but…" He took a sip of wine and replaced his glass on the table and took a cracker and a piece of cheese.

"The Master has obviously been in contact with Harry, and Harry seems to know some of the actions the Master has taken."

"Including those he's killed?!"

"Including those I think." He said taking a bite of his cheese and cracker.

"How can you be so casual about this Doctor, he's 11!"

"Jo, all actions we take shape us into the people we are, the people we meet and those we interact with. Some of the things the Master has been teaching Harry are of benefit to him. He's an intelligent young man, much more so than many his age, maturity as well. Harry trusts the Master, he knows what he's done, but trusts him based on several qualities."

"He said this when I was out?" The Doctor made upward inflection 'hmm' noise.

"I still don't believe it, after everything the Master's done."

"What the Master has done has been…bad, but evil perhaps not. Mr Potter has experience of some horrible situations and I fear probably has not seen the last of those situations. Preparation is part of the key. If you feel so Jo, talk with Harry." Jo turned to the Doctor. "But, be careful Harry has grown to know the Master probably more then you do, he is not just what you have seen of him. He was once a great man and my friend."

Jo stared at the Doctor for a while before leaving him alone.

--//

Harry went to get his trunk out of Bessie, the month had gone past so fast. He'd seen so many places around London, eaten in the same restaurants as recluses and politicians (not that he nor Jo recognised) and discovered a lot more about himself and the magic world. At that thought he smoothed his hair more down over his scar.

"Harry let the Doctor do that, he's just gone to get a trolley."

"Alright Jo." Harry said with a smile to her, after their meeting with Magister she'd wanted to dissuade him from ever seeing him again, telling him of many of the things she'd known him to do, many of them he hadn't known the Master had done, though he'd sensed that he was capable of them.

_Flashback_

"But didn't the Doctor lead to the deaths of those Sea Devils and Magister freed Kronos didn't he?" He'd asked after Jo's constant assertion that the Magister was 'evil'.

"But that's different Harry…"

_End flashback_

Jo had let the subject drop after that day and hadn't brought it up again.

"Here we go Harry, we really must looking into putting some wheels on this trunk." He said as he lifted it onto the trolley, carefully placing Hedwig's cage ontop of the trunk whistling a complex set of notes to her.

Jo had found the Doctor on at least two occasions doing this to the bird, Harry had told her that the Doctor had once said something like owls were at his home.

Walking through the station Harry kept looking around, looking for signs of magic, of wizards, like him.

As they approached the area between platforms nine and ten he saw a group of people all with flaming red hair, and started towards them.

As he was watching them he saw two of the tallest boys begin to run and disappear through a brick wall.

"Excuse me?"

"First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new too."

"Yes." Harry nodded eagerly. "The thing is, I don't know how to…" He was cut off.

"Get onto the platform? Not to worry, all you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platform nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous. Go on, go now, before Ron."

Harry looked at the barrier and then back to the lady. "It's alright I'll let you go, I have to tell my friends first."

"Oh, friends dear?" She asked looking around Harry smiled and walked over to where the Doctor was gesturing grandly around at the station, no doubt he'd been here when they'd opened it.

Jo looked with some doubt at where Harry was waiting with the rather plump lady, her what she assumed to be daughter and young son.

"Fascinating Jo, truly fascinating." The Doctor said as he traced his hands over the wall. "A solid wall, most likely playing on your mind on the psychic level, turns impermeable with…" He pushed at the wall with his hand and it disappeared and then he removed it. "A small amount of force, instantly transferred through the molecular structure of the bricks."

"So it's not a force field?"

"No nothing so crude, this is a work of art." He walked over to Harry. "Perfectly safe Harry."

"Thanks."

"Ready now dear? Alight, Ron'll go first and you can follow him."

As Harry walked at a brisk pace he felt his trolley impact with the wall, but instead of a jarring energy of the trolley continuing to impact with the wall the resistance disappeared almost immediately and then he was on the other side, a grand red gleaming steam engine was before him and there was a platform full of people.

"Marvellous isn't it Harry." Said the Doctor's voice beside him.

"It's amazing, how can all this be here?" Jo said looking around.

"Shush Jo, you'll spoil the allusion." The Doctor said distractedly, looking around him, his eyes alight.

"Allusion?"

"A good magician's tricks aren't tricks." He said before looking back to them as Harry started to walk towards the train as the Doctor's watch beeped.

"Time moves on it seems Harry old chap."

Jo shifted, the activity on the platform seemed to take another heave as more people arrived on the platform through the…barrier.

"Good luck with everything Harry." She bent down to hug him, Harry graciously returned the hug.

"Yes, good luck Harry for the year ahead. Remember I'll be here to return you to your relatives at the end of the year." The Doctor said patting him on the back, and lifting the trunk onto the entrance of the train carriage. "Someone inside should be there to assist you."

"Thank you so much, Doctor, Jo." Harry thanked them, his voice cracking with emotion as he did so.

"Off you go, you don't want to miss the train, goodness knows where Hogwarts is."

"I'm sure the old girl could find it, with some guesswork." The Doctor mused.

Harry shook his hand and gave Jo one last hug before getting on the train.

The trunk was heavier than he thought, weighed down with books and files the Doctor had given him to 'keep him busy'.

"Want a hand?" It was one of the tall red headed boys he'd seen running into the barrier.

"Yes please." Harry said letting out a breath of air.

"Oy Fred! C'mere and help!"

With the twins' help Harry's trunk was at last tucked away in a corner of the compartment.

Harry dragged a hand through his hair.

"Thanks."

"What's that?" Said one of them, pointing at his forehead.

"Blimey," Said the other twin. "Are you-?"

"He is," said the first twin. "He is aren't you?" He added to Harry.

"What?" Said Harry.

"_Harry Potter_." They said together.

"Oh him," said Harry. "I mean yes, I am."

The two twins gawped at him and Harry began to feel the need to push his hair back down and wished he'd asked the Master how he managed to perfect his disguises.

Then with a relief a voice came floating, agitated as through in a microwave through the open door of the compartment.

"Fred, George are you there?"

"Coming mum!" The twins shouted and with one last stare at Harry they disappeared out the door.

--//

Harry grinned to himself as he looked up at Hogwarts castle with Ron and the other first years as Hagrid called out to all the first years.

It had been some train ride.

He'd met again Draco Malfoy, the boy he'd met when he'd been in Diagon Alley, he hadn't been any more nicer this second encounter as the first.

He'd also felt the knowledge that existed of him, from another person, Hermione Granger who seemed to have read all the texts that he'd read and more, all unfortunately that featured him, though she seemed to think that meant she knew _all_ about him, but she seemed nice enough; honest, he'd liked that about her.

And Neville, and his toad and Ron with his rat, he was glad he had Hedwig, he'd much rather her than a rat or a toad, he wondered if Hogwarts allowed snakes…

Thinking of that, Ron seemed very against Slytherin, though judging by some of the people around them that were walking off away from the train who were wearing Slytherin badges they seemed less friendly than others around here.

"Potter, Harry." A chill ran down his spine as his name was called out and he walked, aware of the whispering around him as he picked up the old hat and placed it on his head, blanking out the hall. A voice made itself known in his head.

_Not Slytherin_. Harry thought to the presence in his mind, this was the sort of thing Magister had warned him of.

"I mean no malice Mr Potter. Such intellect, very observant, passionate."

Harry bit his lip, bringing himself away from the voice and concentrated again. _Not Slytherin._ _Not Slytherin!_ He had seen and watched the Slytherins, it was not where he wanted to go, those that he'd met so far had been in Gryffindor.

"Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on your way to greatness, no doubt about that – no?"

Harry stopped himself from arguing, Magister said you needed a clear head, or determination if you were to achieve what you wanted with your mind. At the moment there was too much for him to concentrate on with the hat speaking through his mind.

"Well if you're sure – better be GRYFFINDOR!"

--//

Sarah looked along the platform. She couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, though they were a little early, the Doctor was a short way over from her, examining a brick wall.

The Doctor had been typically mysterious about why they were here, he'd landed the TARDIS on a corner in some storage facility and he'd slid a magnetic card through a reader revealing the Doctor's car he'd used during that business with the Dinosaurs.

They were here to meet a friend of the Doctor's. A young friend by the Doctor's description.

He was at some boarding school 'Hogwarts', Sarah made a note to herself to check in with her editor and ask if she could go in and check their database of the 'weird and wonderful' that the paper usually kept, she had a feeling that was where it would be.

The Doctor had mentioned something about magic and she wasn't sure how he had meant the remark, he had seemed perfectly serious when he had said it, but she recalled on at least one occasion him remarking on the non-existence of such thing.

The people started to walk out of the brick wall.

"Doctor…"

"Perfectly normal Sarah, perfectly normal."

Then Sarah found herself sitting next to Harry as the Doctor drove his 'car' through London, hearing about Dragons and flying brooms and started to wonder if Harry had been at some outlandish creative writing school.

But the passion that he spoke with, it was the same tone the Doctor's voice took on when he was speaking about his other adventures.

Then Harry started to tell them about Voldemort, the Doctor pulled off into a village for them to stop and eat and for them to talk about it.

Harry let the Doctor run his devices over his hands, checking them for any after effects of his defeat of Quirral.

It just felt relaxing sitting her in this quiet village in the sun, chatting. Sarah Jane Smith was nice. The Doctor said that Jo had got married to a scientist after they'd met after an encounter with giant maggots…he supposed it was no odder than dragons and trolls.

While the Doctor went back to his car to check his results he asked Sarah where and when she had been with the Doctor.

"You know that he's…?"

"A time traveller and an alien?" Harry asked as he sipped his drink.

Sarah blinked and nodded. "Yes. You really do know the Doctor."

"Yes. So…or are you from here?"

"Earth?"

"This year?" Harry grinned.

"I don't think so, the Doctor just landed us here."

"Where've you been recently?"

"It hardly tops a dragon! Down a mine on this other planet."

Harry had heard of Peladon, Jo and the Doctor had told him about it, it was nice to hear about it again and the Ice Warriors and the strange Alpha Centuri.

Harry couldn't believe that Dinosaurs had walked in London though, it sounded mad that people thought they were blasting off to a new planet, under London and it had all been a fake. That was really mad, silly even that they would abandon the Earth so quickly, even if it was just a fake their intent was still the same.

Harry looked over as Sarah was telling him about the Exxilon city and the Daleks as the Doctor stalked back over to them.

"Anything Doctor?" He and Sarah said together, then laughed.

"Nothing, no traces of whatever effected you. There is some residual psychic traces, most likely from your encounter with Voldemort."

"Sounds horrible, existing like that leeching off of someone." Sarah shuddered.

"No, not a particularly favourable way of existing Sarah."

"Do you think he's dead Doctor?"

"Hmm? From what I've found out Harry I hope so."

"But…?" Sarah asked noting the Doctor's face.

"But I would be prepared. This Voldemort wasn't alone, and cults like that tend not to die out easily, old Morbius was like that."

--//

Harry looked out of the curved windscreen.

"This is where you live Harry?"

"Yes."

"I think I did a story on one of these new sets of buildings, something about being built on an old waste dump, there was a big cover up by the government."

"I wish it was the Dursley's house." Harry muttered as the Doctor raised the roof so they could all get out.

The Doctor lifted his trunk out, Harry noted that somehow the Doctor had managed to attach wheels to it.

"Just to make it easier for you Harry." He commented upon seeing Harry looking at it.

The man who let Harry in made Sarah think of calling child services, the way he glared at Harry.

"Oh, it's you, get inside before anyone sees you."

"Mr Dursley, you remember me I trust?" The Doctor looked at the man carefully.

"Oh yes of course Doctor Smith." He made an attempt to smile at the Doctor. "If you'd leave us for a moment I will send Harry up to _his room_."

The large man walked back further into the house muttering to himself.

"Well, good bye Harry, I'm sure we will meet again soon."

"But you're not sure when?" Harry smiled, he knew the Doctor well enough to know how random his life was.

"No." The Doctor chuckled.

"It was nice meeting you Sarah."

"And you Harry, hopefully again at some point." Sarah said, hugging him good bye, as did the Doctor.

Harry waved at them from his window as they drove away.

_For Jo and the Doctor this chapter takes place just after __**Carnival of Monsters**__ and for Sarah Jane Smith and the Doctor at some point before __**Planet of the Spiders**__._

_I couldn't have written a Third Doctor story without including the Master. _

_This is the Master as portrayed by Roger Delgado, the Master of the 1970s._

_I never really considered making the Master evil, as in 'evil character' against Harry, it was always in my mind to have the Master in this story and not as an enemy for Harry._

_I've got Harry calling him Magister, rather than Master, just because there is too much of the Death Eaters going around calling Voldemort 'Master'. So whenever Harry meets the Master he always calls him Magister._

_In this chapter I've used some dialogue from The Philosopher's Stone; some of Molly's dialogue, some of the twins' and some of the Hat's dialogue._

_Thanks for reading._


	5. Chapter 5

--

**Chapter 05**

Tegan padded through the hallways of the TARDIS, after the events on Manussa the Doctor had taken them to some marvellous sights. The Master Bakers of Barastabon was a particular favourite. No monsters trying to kill them, no corridors of ventilation shafts, just calm, friendly fun.

"So where are we going this time?"

"Ah Tegan there you are." Tegan watched him, wondering if she needed to grab the sides of the console soon. The Doctor had his glasses on and appeared to be in deep concentration, often a sign that something was going to go catastrophically wrong.

"What's gone wrong now?"

"Why so negative Tegan?"

"You've got glasses on Doctor."

"Have I?" He pulled them off and looked at them. "So I have." He tucked them into a pocket. "No problems, no."

"So where are we heading?" She crossed her arms.

"Earth, according to the Doctor. Is this what you were looking for Doctor?" Nyssa asked as she walked into the room holding what looked like a scarf of some odd woven material.

"And before you ask Tegan this is a tinclavic polymer scarf, very useful among other things at blocking psychic radiation, also with the right manipulation it can become malleable and then back to several thousand times the strength of steel."

"All combined with a softness akin to your silk worms' textured silk and a thermal efficiency of 5.8 on the Vaultan scale." Nyssa finished.

"Very good Nyssa yes."

"And why do we need a scarf that can do all of that?" Tegan looked between the Doctor and the TARDIS console, hoping for answers.

"We don't but we're going to see someone who might."

"Someone?"

"The Doctor says he wanted to see a friend."

"You have friends? Who don't want to see you dead." The Doctor gave her one of his 'looks'.

On a track some ways outside Ottery St Catchpole a blue box parted the space time continuum, the noise it made echoing throughout the general area, managing to make a noise without so much as disturbing anyone that might be in the vicinity.

A moment later the door opened and a man strode out taken in a deep breath of the country air, and jammed a hat onto his head.

"Ah perfect, Britain in the summer time. Come on you two." He shouted into the box.

Tegan followed Nyssa outside where the Doctor was waiting and looked around.

It looked like Earth, smelt like it too. It reminded her of the times she spent with her grandfather Verney.

"Well?" The Doctor was looking at her in that intense way.

"It's Earth."

"Thank you for your vote of confidence Tegan." The Doctor looked around, his cream coat flapping in the slight breeze. "This way." He pointed towards the slight incline.

Tegan looked at Nyssa and shrugged. "I wonder who this friend is."

"All the Doctor said was that he was a young friend that he's known for some time."

"Which could mean anything knowing the Doctor." Tegan said

"Beautiful day, there's our destination." The Doctor said when they reached the top of the small rise.

Tegan wasn't quite sure what to make of it; an architect's nightmare came to mind. It reminded her some-what of Castrovalva in the way the storeys of the house had been stacked, with seemingly no regard for style or gravity for that matter.

"It's a curious design." Nyssa said beside her, though Tegan could tell even she shared some of the Doctor's wonder looking at the house.

On the gate they were slowly walking up toward it read _The Burrow_.

"Alright Doctor who is this friend and why does his house look like it was designed by MC Escher?"

"He doesn't live here Tegan he's staying here." He said as he walked up to the door, rapping his knuckles on the door.

Tegan could here a variety of footsteps inside before the door was wrenched open by a plump woman with firey red hair.

"Hello…" She looked between them.

"Hello there, I was wondering if I could see Harry."

"Harry?" Her eyes narrowed staring at them.

"Yes, Harry Potter."

"You know Harry?" She looked carefully at the Doctor.

"Yes, tell him it's the Doctor, oh." He looked at Tegan and Nyssa. "These are my friends, Nyssa and Tegan."

"Hi." Tegan smiled, but the woman was still looking at them coolly.

"Hello."

"Just…just a moment." She closed the door, but it didn't meet with the door frame.

"Not very friendly Doctor."

"She's just careful Tegan."

"She seems protective." Nyssa observed.

Behind the door Tegan could here the woman shout. "Fred, go upstairs and get Harry, ask him to come down here, George fire-call your father."

"Yes mum." Said a similar pair of voices.

Tegan could here more thundering of footsteps up and down the strange structure that passed for a house.

As Tegan was beginning to count the boots that were piled up in a corner under the eaves, trying mentally to calculate how many people lived there based on the amount of shoes, the door opened once more.

"Harry this man said he knows you."

Tegan looked over the boy, he was wearing a neat shirt and jacket that had obviously been chosen to complement and contrast with his green eyes. His hair was messy and…they met eyes briefly, he seemingly doing the same to her, Nyssa and the Doctor.

"Doctor?"

"Yes, hello Harry, I know I might look a little different…" Harry rushed forward met the Doctor in a hug.

"You always say that!" He laughed as he stepped back.

"Yes, I probably do." He stepped aside. "These are my friends, Nyssa, and Tegan."

"Hi." Tegan said as Nyssa also greeted her.

The woman standing behind Harry suddenly brightened (slightly), Tegan felt like telling her that yes, she had seen her watching them like a croc watched its prey.

"Where are my manners come in, come in." She beckoned into the house. She lead them through the house to the kitchen, Tegan was sure she saw a pot washing itself, but they continued out to the back of the house where some chairs were set up overlooking the backyard.

"Now, can I get you all something to drink?" She barely waited for an answer before ducking back into the kitchen.

"How'd you know I was here Doctor?" Harry asked in a low voice as soon as Mrs Weasley was gone, the Doctor had always met him at the Dursleys, and he hadn't even known where he was going to until he'd been rescued.

"More to the point how did you get here?"

"In Mr Weasley's flying car."

"Flying what?" The young girl, Nyssa asked.

"Car." Harry said simply, then prompted by Tegan's raised eyebrow added. "A Ford Anglia."

"Very retro, you have some interesting friends Doctor."

"Yes, thank you Tegan."

"You didn't answer my question Doctor, I thought maybe…no."

"No, no what Harry?" His voice took on a worried tone.

"Nothing, so…?"

"Ah…" The Doctor looked around. "I wonder where Mrs Wesley is with the drinks."

"There." Harry pointed at him. "You did it again!"

"What did he do?" Tegan asked.

"She didn't tell you her name. Unless you talked after you dropped me at the station."

"Ah, well you see Harry you have told me, just not yet." He said awkwardly.

"What?" Tegan looked as puzzled as Harry. So it wasn't just the people he travelled with that the Doctor had this affect on, the people he met frequently he also did this to.

"Well, you have told me already, just, if only I'd got rid of the randomiser instead of over-riding it." He sighed. Harry looked over at her.

"Don't worry, he goes on like this sometimes." Tegan said with a smile.

"I know, talking to himself, long complicated explanations, and according to him being locked up."

Tegan laughed. "Good to know we're not the only ones."

"I still don't get it Doctor."

"Well, you see Harry, I've met you before, though in the future, you won't recognise me, but I've met you now, which will be the past when you meet me, a different me in the future."

Harry closed his eyes, he wondered if he wrote it down it'd make sense.

"Don't you see? The Doctor has already met you Harry where you told him about this, but it's in the Doctor's past. So the next time you meet the Doctor, in your personal future will be the meeting the Doctor has already had with you."

"That's absolutely correct Nyssa, temporal theory is something of a complicated science, especially in practical real world events."

"So shouldn't you know everything already then?"

"Not at all, one meeting, it's a lifetime ago." He looked off into the backyard and further to the orchard.

"Here we are dears, a nice cool drink." She said waving her wand, the five cups flipped themselves over and the jug poured four streams of liquid into the cups.

"I'm not even going to ask." Tegan said as she took the cup.

"Some sort of tele-psychic physical projection?" Nyssa postulated.

"Magic." The Doctor announced, taking a sip. "Mmm, this pumpkin juice is wonderfully fresh Mrs Weasley."

"Thank you Doctor." She said beaming a careful smile at him.

How did the Doctor manage to go so quickly from being a suspicious guy at the door to being smiled at like a favourite son? Tegan wondered as she took a cup herself. She wasn't sure about pumpkin juice, but it was a warm day and as there wasn't anything else on offer. Plus considering some of the things she'd tasted in their travels, 'pumpkin juice' was hardly bad.

"Now, Mrs Weasley, could I perhaps liberate Harry from you for a little while."

"Liberate?"

"Just a turn around the gardens as they used to say."

She looked to Tegan and Nyssa.

"He means he wants to chat alone to Harry."

"Harry?"

"It's okay Mrs Weasley, it's been…some time since we chatted."

"If you're sure dear. Stay in view of the Burow dear."

"Yes Mrs Weasley." Harry said pushing himself out of his chair.

"I don't suppose you can tell me about what's going to happen?" Harry asked the Doctor once they were out of ear shot of the house.

"No, no, no. Against the laws of time Harry, knowing one's personal future. So what were you saying before, something that could have prevented me from seeing you?"

"Nothing, this house elf, thinks I'm in danger." Harry looked up at the Doctor. "Am I?" He looked up at the Doctor's young face, he was younger, now that he was older. Though from what the Doctor had said that didn't mean anything, regeneration was random, except in certain situations, whatever that meant.

"Are you what Harry?"

"In danger?" Harry said and then amended. "More danger?"

"I don't know." The Doctor said with a sigh. Harry stopped walking.

"Really?"

"I don't, I don't remember much of our previous meeting, little things, but, memory is an odd thing, my last regeneration was a trying experience." The Doctor said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I used to do that." The Doctor looked to him, curiously. "Pinch my nose like that, Hermione says that I do it when I'm stressed."

"Ah, yes Hermione your rather intelligent friend, very observant."

"Yeah, she was really surprised that I'd read all those extra books you gave me."

"That reminds me." The Doctor pulled the scarf out of his pocket. "Happy birthday."

Harry accepted the scarf running his hands over it as the Doctor described in brilliant detail what it was and where it came from. It was weird, soft, yet he could feel the strength in it.

"Thank you Doctor."

"So tell me more about this house elf and how you got here in this flying car?"

"Have you known Harry long?"

Before Tegan had a chance to say anything Nyssa opened her mouth, being so marvellously truthful. "We've never met, the Doctor has though, he just decided to come to see him."

"Oh, so the Doctor he knows our Harry?"

"He said they've been friends for several years."

"He's never mentioned it." She said sounding slightly put out. Tegan suspected that there were probably a few things her sons kept from their over protective mother. Tegan could tell that just from the last 20 or 30 minutes or so of chatting to her about random general things.

Then the door opened and two boys came out onto the balcony. "Mum, dad's finally free, you told us to come and get you."

"Oh yes, thank you. I'll be just a moment."

"Hello."

"Hello."

Tegan eyed the twin boys who were grinning at them.

"So how do you two girls know young Mr Potter?"

"You're not that old either." Tegan observed, taking a sip of her juice, she was beginning to appreciate it.

"Harry certainly never said he had such beautiful friends. Fred."

"No he didn't George." The other said as he reached forward and poured two further cups of juice.

"Why don't you use a…wand, like you mother did?"

"Can't, not outside of school, we're underage. You're muggles aren't you?"

"Muggles?" Nyssa exchanged a look with Tegan who shrugged.

"Non-magic folk."

"Depends what you mean by not magic." Tegan said mysteriously.

Then the door slammed open again, another red headed boy came out onto the progressively crowding balcony.

"Percy said there's something weird smelling in your room, he 'can't concentrate'."

"Probably polishing his wand." Fred winked at Tegan who stared cooly at him as he stood up to leave, refusing to rise to his childish joke, or at least it would be if everyone around here didn't _have_ wands.

"Excuse me ladies, I'm sure Ron can keep you entertained while we tend to what is making Percy's nose smell."

"So, Ron, are you a friend of Harry?" Nyssa asked after a moment.

"Yep, who're you."

"We're friends of the Doctor, he's a friend of Harry."

"Harry doesn't have any other friends." Ron said almost immediately then added. "Who's the Doctor?"

"I'm the Doctor." Tegan refused to jump, and managed just a slight twitch, how the Doctor managed to sneak up on them. "I think it's time for us to be off."

"So soon Doctor? I thought you wanted to talk with your friend?"

"I have Nyssa, places to be, people to see, people _not to be seen by_." He was already moving, walking around the side of the house to the front door.

Tegan pulled herself out of her chair and rolled her eyes at Nyssa who followed.

"I'll accompany you back to the ship." Harry said as he turned to follow them. "Ron, if anyone turns up just tell them I've gone to see a friend off."

"Harry what's going on?" Ron almost shouted at Harry as Harry walked briskly to join Tegan and Nyssa.

"What's the Doctor's rush? I thought you and he wanted to have a good chat."

"The Doctor's done that. He said that I said something that…" Harry shook his head. "I've seen him a couple of times in different regenerations and it's still confusing."

"You know about regeneration?" Nyssa asked curiously. Harry nodded.

"Told me about it the first or second time we met, some how when we first met I knew there was something…strange about him." Harry shook his head. "Anyway, when I next meet him I'll tell him that Mrs Weasly will have worked herself up and got Mr Weasley here, probably to ask me questions, I know the Doctor doesn't share things easily. He muttered something about a self-fulfilling paradox and wanted to rush off."

"He doesn't like to share things about his past with everyone." Nyssa said as they walked slowly down the hill, the Doctor was already at the TARDIS waiting with the door open.

"So how'd you two get travelling with him?"

"We're not the first people you've asked that of have you?"

"Nope, but it's always interesting."

"Thought it was a real police box. Then he kidnapped me." Tegan said casually.

"You're enjoying it though." Tegan nodded. "It's not the first time he's done it."

"What?"

"Kidnap people, first people I met when I was in school he'd kidnapped. They seemed to be enjoying it too."

"I knew it." She said as they reached the TARDIS.

"Come on, come on."

"It was really nice meeting you Harry." Nyssa hugged him and then went quickly into the TARDIS.

"Was it something I said?" Harry looked to Tegan.

"No, just…how she came to travel with us…Harry we'll have to catch up again whenever the Doctor drops me off, when he's finished kidnapping me."

"What? I've never kidnapped anyone!" The Doctor decried.

"That's not what Harry's said. Good bye" She said shaking his hand. "You can tell he's itching to go." She whispered to him.

"Well, Harry, good luck with the year."

"Still no hints Doctor?"

"No…none that I remember well enough. Just…remember your abilities and try not to get hurt." He said with a smile and a hug.

"Till next time then."

"Yes." The Doctor stepped in and shut the door.

Harry stood there and watched as the noise of the TARDIS filled the hillside around him and the TARDIS disappeared from area in front of him, leaving only an impression in the grass of a square.

Then rushing down the hill was Mr and Mrs Weasley wands in hand, Harry smiled to himself, the Doctor had been a little vague, but obviously he was going to get a grilling over having a chat with an old friend.

--//

"So who was that guy Harry?" Ron whined at him again. Harry closed his eyes and put down the book he was trying to read. Ron had said it was weird to read about murders, even fictional ones. Harry rather liked Agatha Christie, he wondered if the Doctor had ever met her, he was always going on about people he'd met; Horatio Nelson, Napoleon, Barbara had pretended to be an Aztec goddess, he wondered what had happened to Tegan, or more to the point what had happened to Nyssa to start travelling with the Doctor.

"He's a friend, just as I told your mum and dad, he's a friend I've known since I was in primary school."

"Who just turns up and was able to find the Burrow, without you having sent out any owls or anything, it's a bit weird Harry."

"The Doctor's a pretty weird guy Ron, all things considered." Harry said the last part mostly to himself.

"But Harry…"

"Ron lets get some sleep, no doubt you can get Hermione to annoy me tomorrow." Harry muttered as he blew the candle out.

--//

He gripped the rickety hand rail up to the guests box. The humans around him were in long dark cloaks.

The wind here reminded him of some of the seasons on his home planet. While the Doctor couldn't escape their grasping hands he had left their home behind, it would take more than _their_ bleating voices to take him back. And certainly not the recall unit, that would only do to bring a large asteroid crashing onto the citadel, it would serve them right. He wasn't some animal to be whipped and brought into line.

He looked into the air as the crowd began to cheer, there appeared to be a chance of rain.

As the players kicked off, he had to admit to himself, quietly there was something curious about the motion of these people, the quick movements, their method of moving, completely unreliant on any technology.

He'd come partly out of curiosity, and partly to see him play, since he'd found out he was playing this 'sport'. His skills based in observation and quick movement.

Something the blond boy did not have, he seemed determined to throw puerile insults to the young man he had come to watch.

He watched as they stopped the match, the balls around them becoming stationary. He stretched his gloves against the railing as the skies darkened and rain it seemed was aching to break forth.

As they resumed play he studied the movement of the balls, whose purpose was only to seemingly disrupt the players, and give the two red headed boys something to hit.

But the young man, his darting eyes, unrestrained by glasses, something the Doctor was responsible for, something of benefit to the young man. The rain seemed to be having little affect on him.

The Master watched and realised, perhaps at the same moment as Harry Potter, the man he had come to watch realised that one of the projectiles was heading for him.

He was impressed at the young man's ability to focus on the task, not considering the pain of quite clearly a broken arm, focusing instead on his goal.

The Master appreciated that quality in a person, he had to give the Doctor that he was a worthy adversary, at times. Just as Harry would be to whomever foes he faced.

Flying toward the blond child was a move that made the Master smile, using your enemy to distract the greater problem, another move that showed the young man's skills in tactical thought.

The Master was moving before the young man he was watching hit the ground.

"Ah, we've won." Harry Potter said looking around.

The Master reached Harry Potter, just as the cretin Lockhart was boasting to the assembled masses of students around. The Master fingered his weapon, stowed inside a pocket.

"Oh no, not you." Harry said looking at Lockhart, the Master had to smile at the contempt Harry had for the man.

"Doesn't know what he's saying." Lockhart boasted again to the crowd.

"I think he knows perfectly well what he's saying." The Master stepped forward, grabbing the collected crowd's eye with one movement around him. "You are all concerned about Harry Potter. You will _all_ obey me." He looked around, watching each of the students. Controlling such a large group was difficult, but in their adrenalin fuelled state their biochemistry hyper stimulated from their sport made them particularly susceptible, if their concerns were manipulated.

There was a murmur amongst them, though not Lockhart who seemed to be drooling.

"You will return to your change rooms, Harry Potter was taken to the hospital wing, you will obey me…obey me…now go." He snapped a gloved hand. Lockhart was still standing there. Harry appeared to be on the verge of blacking out once more. He bent down and picked up the boy, as he passed Lockhart, punched him, hard.

Physical violence was such a…mortal method, but sometimes it was exhilarating, as he had told the Doctor at least once. This time, just watching the man fall into the mud, it slopping over a coat he doubted even the Doctor could wear, he found it quite satisfying.

Harry blinked and looked around, he was in darkened room, in the centre of the room was a hexagonal console.

"Mr Potter, you're awake."

"Magister!" Harry rose, but Magister pushed him down gently.

"The arm will be sore for some days, but at least you still have it, Rassilon knows not what the man would have done to you." He said with distaste.

Harry nodded looking around. The Doctor had told him about what _his_ TARDIS looked like, but this was the first time he'd seen the interior of one.

Harry wasn't sure how long had passed, but at some point the Magister guided him out of what looked like a medical cabinet on the outside and into the hospital wing, where he waited for the team to return rushing in, followed by Professor McGonagoll and a very muddy Lockhart.

Harry had to think fast as to how he was A) dry, and B) his arm had healed, save for some ache in his limbs. Though throughout his explanation which when he reflected back later that night had been about pain induced hyper-motion and sppntaneous magical healing, phrases he was sure he'd either heard Hermione say once or he'd just made up, but throughout it all he could swear he could see Lockhart eyeing him, almost dangerously.

--//

Harry looked at Fawkes, offering himself to them to lift them out, he cringed again as he moved his strained and possibly broken arm, the strain of stabbing the basilisk or some other point during his encounter with Riddle must have broken it.

_In a different place_ he thought grimly to himself, he'd broken it in a different location to when he'd broken it in Quidditch. That was something to be thankful for.

This was despite Fawke's healing tears which seemed to have prevented the lethal Basilisk venom from killing him, or the open wound from bleeding out, but still left him with several injuries.

Looking over at Ginny, she was leaning heavily on Ron, exhausted by her near death possession by Riddle.

"He looks like he wants you to grab hold…but you're much too heavy for a bird to pull up there." Ron said perplexed.

"Fawkes isn't an ordinary bird." Harry said gingerly pulling his scarf off as he began to think and to let him stretch his neck. In doing so he rubbed the fabric between his fingers. "Tinclavic…" He murmured to himself a smile forming on his lips as he tied a hard knot in it forming a loop so he and Ginny could put it under their arms.

"What are you doing Harry can't we just hand off your robes?" Ron asked, pulling gently on his robes as he looked over at the mindless Lockhard. Harry winced and drew in a rough breath and wondered if one of his cracked ribs had punctured a lung, Magister had said he should read up and _know_ what these things felt like, should he get into life threatening situations.

"No." Harry bit out coughing and spat a wad of blood and phlegm onto the rock beside them and then cleared his throat. "If you did that I think my arm may break a little bit more." He said with an odd smile. How long did an adrenalin rush last for? He wondered to himself.

"Oh." Ron squeaked.

Soon they'd all got attached or were hanging off his scarf that wasn't an ordinary scarf and they were flying away. Lockhart babbling next to Ron, Harry grit his teeth both trying to ignore Lockhart whom he imagined if he hadn't been trying to block out the rising pain and keep a grip on his scarf he might have had more than words to throw at the mindless professor.

--//

Harry thought Fawkes was leading them to the Hospital wing, but no, he thought with a cringe, it was Professor McGonagall's office.

"Ginny!"

Mrs Weasley was about to sweep him into an embrace when Dumbledore, whom Harry thought had been standing by the mantelpiece when he'd walked in strode up to him.

"Fawkes wasn't entirely successful in your healing Harry?"

"Just a sprain, or near break, and my ribs I think one or two are cracked." Harry weased out. Dumbledore regarded him curiously and waved his wand over him, for a moment he was bathed in a golden glow. "A little trick Madam Pomfrey will probably not approve of. You will be sore for several days alas." He said quietly to him.

Harry nodded, everything still felt like it had a few moments before, except he was relatively sure he wasn't going to cough up any more blood and there wasn't the immense stabbing pain in his chest whenever he moved.

No one seemed to have noticed his and Dumbledore's brief exchange.

"You saved her! You saved her! How did you do that?"

"I think we'd all like to know that." Professor McGonagall asked weakly.

Bolstered by a hot mug of tea Dumbledore had passed him Harry began to explain.

--//

_The sequence with the Master wasn't originally in this chapter. But this chapter felt like it needed another visit from the Master, to bring through some of the ideas introduced in the previous chapters._

_There was also, in an early draft of this chapter a different scene involving the Master and Harry. I actually got through with writing a large amount of it. Which involved re-writing major chunks of the CoS. Not something I ever intended to do, it would have meant really big changes for Harry. After writing it, it just didn't feel like the sorts of things that I wanted happening, so I went back and wrote this chapter again for the most part._

_I prefer having snapshots into or before and after Harry's adventures in each of the books, it's (for one less re-writing) and secondly easier to write where I have more freedom to write and muck around with the settings and characters and everything._

_The final sequence with Harry, Ginny, Ron and Lockhart was again something that didn't exist when I finished the chapter, but in planning the next chapter or two certain things will be a bit more gritty and this last section existed in some of my plans, but I didn't get around to writing it until the last moment._

_Thanks for reading._


	6. Chapter 6

--

**Chapter 06**

Romana found the Doctor 'relaxing' in the library, at least he said he was _relaxing_, it looked suspiciously like sleep to her.

He'd been particularly reflective since re-meeting his old friend Professor Chronotis.

"So where are we off to now Doctor?"

"Hmmm?" He said, his voice muffled from underneath a book.

"I was just in the console room, we're not moving." She said as she strode over to the mess of shelves the Doctor called a library, why he couldn't keep a system _like_ a library she didn't know. Looking at the shelves it was as though several systems had come crashing together.

"You said something about stretching our legs."

"Metaphorical legs Romana, broadening the mind." He said in a rush of movement leapt out of the chair and out the door.

In the console room he was in a rush of movement around the console. Romana watched him for a moment. "Are you alright Doctor?"

"Alright? Alright?! Of course I'm alright Romana, why would you think differently?"

"You have been, subdued since we departed Cambridge."

"Well, meeting old acquaintances does that, reminds you how old you are."  
"You're not that old Doctor." Romana commented, flicking a button on the orbital rectifier as she did so.

"Old? No I suppose I'm not." The Doctor lifted his head a little higher.

"So?"

"Old acquaintances…" He repeated Romana's statement. "Why not just say friends, when you mean friends."

"I didn't know you had any _old _friends, especially for someone as _young_ as you Doctor."

"Yes. I am rather young…but there is a friend, he's quite young himself, I haven't visited in…" He trailed off. Moving around the console again.

"Where are we going now?" The Doctor made 'shushing' noises to her.

"Delicate stuff, temporal coordinates need to be exact. Especially with the remains of the randomiser still in the old girl."

Romana crouched down beside K9 who was sitting in the corner of the console room.  
"Where are we going K9?"

K9 jerked forward extending a sensor toward the console.

"Earth, mistress."

"Earth? Again?"

"To see an old, young friend of mine, you'll like him." Them the Doctor rushed out of the console room.

Romana watched the rise and fall of the central column for a few moments and briefly considered following the Doctor, which was when he burst back into the console room carrying several boxes which he promptly emptied out onto the console.

"What's all this Doctor."

"A gift, a little something I was working on…oh long ago."

"Which is?" Romana prompted, flicking down a switch on the console.

"Emergency beacon, useful for my friend."

"Always in emergencies?"

"He does have a habit of it."

"Rather like you." She muttered.

"Hmmm. What? Oh I suppose he is, rather clever, intelligent, sense of humour."

"I meant getting into trouble." She said with a grin. "So who is he?"

"He?"

"Your friend we're off to visit."

"Oh, Harry Potter."

Romana walked over to the door out of the console room after the Doctor had finished telling her about Harry Potter, his friend he'd know for…several lives.

"Going so soon?" He said not looking up.

"Well if you're making that, I should get him a gift, since he's such an _old_ friend of yours."

"Young." He corrected after she'd put such emphasis on _old_.

The Doctor looked up from his handiwork as Romana walked back into the console room carrying a small box and placed it on the console.

"How long till we land K9?"

"Imminent mistress."

"Finished?" She leaned over to the side of the console where the Doctor was standing.

"Of course."

"And?"

"A fully functioning Spacio-Temporal Emergency Beacon, just what every traveller needs." He looked over at her grinning, challenging.

She delicately removed the lid of the box, allowing the Doctor to gaze into it. "Rock?"

"The energy enhancing stone from Crinoth, given the tele-psychic nature of whatever your Potter friend is up to, it might prove…"

"Fortuitous, yes, excellent work, an excellent idea." He began walking around the console throwing bits of brick-a-brack onto the floor and into the corners of the console room. "Excellent work." Then he almost shouted. "How long K9?"

The central column dropped down as the TARDIS materialised.

"Arrival, master."

The Doctor harrumphed and grabbed the spacio-temporal emergency beacon and stuffed it in his pocket.

"Come on, lets go and surprise him."

--//

Vernon Dursley didn't like being disrupted from his breakfast, it was just as well that disturbed freak had wondered off when he did, though when the other _freaks_ came around they could have dressed more _normal_.

Vernon opened the door wishing the incessant knocking would stop and was greeted by a mad idiot, who looked like he was one of the cult of freaks.

"Hello there Vernon!"

"Hello." Romana said to the rather large man.

"What the bloody hell do you two want?"

"Three, don't worry K9." The Doctor patted the back of K9's head. "He probably just didn't see you." He looked back up at Vernon. "We're just here to see Harry, you don't mind do you?"

"I bloody well do mind, that freak isn't here."

"Freak?" The Doctor looked coldly at him. Romana had only heard the Doctor use that tone in exceptionally dire circumstances or when he was distinctly angry. "Freak? Harry Potter is more a man than you could ever have the potential to be. What do you mean isn't here?"

The large man blinked for a few moment at the Doctor's changing of tact.

"Ran off in the night, after he blew up my poor sister, he deserves never to come back after that!"

"But he will, and you Vernon will let him." The Doctor jabbed a finger at him, then crouched down. "K9 how many people in the house?"

"Scanning…" His ears oscillated. "Sensors indicate three humanoids within the house master."

"Now that your metal mutt has told you, good bye. Freak." He said and slammed the door.

"Any traces of psychic energy K9."

"My sensors cannot differentiate between sources mistress." Romana looked back up at the Doctor who was looking up at the window on the second floor, in thought.

"K9 can you isolate the energy specific to the first floor and trace it?" She asked.

"Affirmative mistress, a faint path is present, coordinates are…" K9 began to reel off a set of numbers.

"Back to the TARDIS, K9 shut up." The Doctor turned on his heel and strode back to the TARDIS.

--//

"Short hops are always tricky even with precise coordinates!"

"Especially since you insist on keeping the randomiser connected, there's been no sign of the Black Guardian."

"It's not working, it's just connected, the old girl doesn't like being pocked and prodded."

"And this was the closest you could get to the end point of the energy your friend has in common with?" Romana gestured around the alley way the TARDIS was currently parked in.

"Dimensional disturbances mistress prevent accurate lock of specific energy signature and extrapolation of exact coordinates." K9 said as he trundled out of the TARDIS.

The Doctor lifted up his hat looking around and then pointed, the only way out of the alley. "This way."

--//

Romana followed the Doctor and K9 into a dingy looking drinking establishment. It name, barely visible stated it was the 'Leaky Cauldron'.

"Ah bar keep, way to Diagon Alley?"

Tom looked at the two muggles, they had to be, if they didn't know the way to Diagon Alley. They could have been wizard and witch recluses, especially given their…odd ways.

But had to be muggles, plus there was the tin dog the man kept talking to. The lady smiled at him as she followed the man.

"Now K9, simple puzzle, which stones?" The Doctor was standing out in another alley.

"You do bring me to the most wondrous locations Doctor, what next a rubbish tip?"

"What?" The Doctor looked around seemingly for the first time noticing where they were. "Oh I suppose it's not the most auspicious of entrances, but appearances can be deceiving, much is the appearance I like to upkeep." He brushed down his coat.

"Processing master."

"It doesn't look like anywhere that could lead to 'large shopping area'. These people haven't mastered even the simplest of lighting let alone any sort of dimensional compression techniques, that's far above a level 2 civilisation."

"Level 2?" The Doctor asked slightly distracted.

"Fires, gas lights, outside this place is probably level 5, but in there." She shook her head. "There wasn't an ounce of technology in there."

"Three up master…" The Doctor was touching the bricks with his finger, unsurprisingly for Romana nothing happened.

"Maybe it's just a parlour trick that your friend dreamt up."

"Nonsense."

"Suggestion master."

"Yes K9?"

"An implement, to interact with the barrier may prove more fortuitous."

"Excellent idea K9." The Doctor said as he began patting down his pockets.

"So there is a barrier here K9?"

"Yes mistress, a physical barrier on .888 recurring on the silverberg scale."

"Psychic energy is holding a physical barrier up." She surmised.

"Precisely." The Doctor grinned.

"Bafflegab, it's preposterous, the amount of energy that…" She trailed off as the Doctor finished tapping the bricks with his sonic screwdriver. They began to slot and fold away revealing a large, though narrow alley way before them.

Her and the Doctor's people had perfected the art of dimensional transcendentalism centuries ago, though it was still a sight for a civilisation that from appearances and through the various spectrums that Time Lords could see was a level 2, or at the most 3 civilisation, using, existing in a dimensionally transcendental area.

"A dimensional pocket, naturally formed and artificially maintained." she mused as they walked out into the alley way. Romana brushed her hair away as she looked into the opening.

"Magic, Romana, wonderful brilliant magic!" He grinned as they walked slowly down the alley.

Romana looked down at K9. "Any energy readings K9?" She asked him as the Doctor was looking around, pontificating on the human race. K9's ears twitched.

"Negligible mistress."

"Negligible?"

"Energy readings confirm presence of silverberg energy, fluctuations suggest energy is prevalent throughout whole area."

"Psychic energy on a scale this large…it's unheard of."

"Unheard of isn't impossible, just unlikely and what is unlikely is almost as likely. Nothing is impossible, what permeates survives and what survives breeds." The Doctor said ominously as they walked along through the cobbled streets. "And the human race is good at that, surviving, breeding, ready to change and develop, a wonderful species. Wonderful."

--//

Harry lifted the final book onto the counter and waited for them to be tallied up. They weren't tomes, not even his school books, he shuddered at the thought. Hagrid's gift had meant that he didn't have to buy it. Through trial and getting his hand bitten he'd discovered how to subdue it, but it only stayed that way for a few hours then resumed trying to chew through anything in sight. He'd eventually used an old belt that he assumed used to be Dudley's from before Jo Grant had taken him on a shopping spree, that adventure felt like an age ago. He'd asked Tom the bartender if he could take one of the small boxes the butter beer was delivered in, there were several at the back of the pub and was the perfect size to stop the book moving too much, especially with his cauldron sitting on top of it.

As he paid for the books Harry mused on his choices of school subjects. The only subject he was still unsure of was Divination, he had read in several places that it was the most unreliable of magic and that if you didn't have the 'gift' it was unlikely that you would progress.

Which made Harry wonder why it was offered at Hogwarts, unless the theory was just as interesting, in that being able to identify a divination person or event, then the knowledge of it became useful.

The Doctor had mentioned some things in his previous visits, though Harry wasn't sure what he _really _thought on some things. The Master also had mentioned being able to manipulate people through questions and their answers to give the _appearance_ of able to divine something from a person.

He'd decided mentally that he was going to have a go at it for as long as he could and then, if not throw himself on Professor McGonagall's mercy and hope she would allow him to change. He had in mind already Ancient Runes, history was something he'd been curious about ever since Barbara and Ian had told him their stories of the Aztecs and Marco Polo, and seeing ancient man. But what had made him not elect it was his dreams, obviously not the conventional divination (or what he had been able to uncover thus far by flipping through his text books). But he wanted to know if being taught how to interpret or 'see' might be of helpful.

Harry tested the weight of the bag he was given, it weighed of hardly anything, perhaps one or two paperbacks rather than the 6 books he'd found on the "notorious" Sirius Black, whom he had seen endless articles in the _Prophet_ all distinctly lacking on the information front.

'_Go back through the records, history will be written down somewhere' _He was sure Barbara had said, or quite possibly the Doctor, the one who Jamie and Zoe travelled with.

Harry was jostled out of his thoughts as he tripped on a larger than normal cobble stone outside Gringotts, he'd done it several times before, and even sat and watched from Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour as many people walked by it, some tripping some others. That had been an oddly enlightening day.

Looking around he took in the wonderfully weird sights of Diagon Alley, as he did so he saw two figures _and_ a metal dog walking down the alley toward him.

The Doctor, last year hadn't really told him much about his previous incarnation, the one he was destined to meet, but Harry was willing to bet that the man with the long scarf, curly hair and wide eyes was him.

--//

Romana watched as the Doctor stopped and then increased his pace.

"Harry James Potter. You've grown."

"Doctor." Harry said with a grin as the Doctor reached forward, shaking his hand and giving him a one armed hug. "You've changed, _again_."

The Doctor shrugged. "This is Romana, Romana, Harry Potter, a very good friend."

"Thank you Doctor, I can introduce myself."

Harry smiled, offering her his hand. "Romana."

"And this is K9." He pointed at K9. "K9, Harry Potter."

K9 twitched. "Master. Harry Potter, stored and memorised Master."

"Master?" Harry raised a curious eyebrow at him.

"Perhaps we should go back to where you're staying, Harry?" Romana said looking around, they weren't so much attracting a crowd but they were getting curious glances.

"Of course, of course. Lunch, middle of the day break, definitely in order."

Harry allowed the Doctor and K9 to take the lead and walked slightly slower with Romana.

"You know he's a Time Lord then?"

Harry nodded. "What gave me away."

"You knew he's changed, _again_. Honestly he's gone through more bodies than a fluttering."

Harry frowned, he was sure he'd heard of that before. "An insect, found around Mount Cadon and other areas" Harry paused and saw Romana was looking at him oddly. "On Gallifrey."

"He has shared a lot with." She said shortly.

"I've known the Doctor a long time, well it feels like a long time." Harry sighed. "Almost every time I meet him, he's on another regeneration."

"He seems to go through them like hats." Romana commented.

"Or outfits." Harry said with a chuckle. "And you, if you don't mind me asking?" Harry asked as they continued slowly along the alley.

"Me?" She asked. "Oh, second. I was bored with the old one."

"Bored? You can do that?"

She shrugged.

Harry looked ahead at the Doctor, he'd picked up some odd device that looked like a glass spinning top.

"It's more of an art. The Doctor does it in emergencies."

"Not always." Harry said quietly. Romana stopped him walking and looked at him. Harry sighed.

"When he was exiled to Earth, he said his people forced a regeneration on him." Romana looked shocked at this information.

"He never…"

"I don't suppose he wants to talk about it, it's in the past. I'm not sure I should even be saying anything, it's just…"

"No one to talk to about it." She said. "Come on, other wise he'll end up buying half the alley and even the TARDIS isn't big enough for all this."

"Bar keep. I _private_ parlour if you please." The Doctor announced in a hushed tone as he entered the bar. Tom the bar keep looked over at Harry and Romana, Harry shrugged at his curious glance.

Once they were seated and food arrived for them the Doctor began to ask about his previous year, and why he was in Diagon Alley.

Harry explained about what had happened his previous year, going into detail about the Weasleys, conscious of what the Doctor knew…that is would know when he had last seen him, when the Doctor would see meet him again…

Time travel was confusing. Harry wondered if that was part of being a Time Lord, being able to understand the ebb and flow of time.

"We encountered a book like that, not literally speaking but, it was still most distressing." Romana said.

Harry could almost imagine a book that time travelled, or made someone travel to a certain location, it seemed fantastical in one sense, though he was sure Ron would say it was just magic, but it was good to know that the Doctor also encountered something book related, that indirectly tried to kill him.

They continued, each swapping stories with the other, as Harry began telling the Doctor and Romana about his battle with the basilisk.

"And this 'phoenix' cause localised cell regeneration." Harry looked at the Doctor.

"Roll up your sleeve Harry. There are many animals in the universe with remarkable properties." He said looking at the faint scar that remained on his arm.

"Remarkable. The healing abilities of the bird must share some genetic heritage with the…" Romana began to say but the Doctor urged Harry to continue with his story.

"You met the Daleks' creator?"

"Twice."

"What was he like?" Harry asked curiously. He'd heard about the Daleks several times, from the Doctor (each time he'd met him) and from Ian and Barbara, Jamie, Jo and Sarah Jane Smith. Each time the idea of them had scared him, made him curious, he had some pity for them, especially now that he knew they had a 'creator', rather than being forced into it by necessity.

"A megalomaniac of the highest order, a brilliant twisted scientist." As the Doctor began to tell him what Davros did, while the Doctor was on Skaro he pondered with half a mind if the Doctor dreamt or had nightmares about Davros or the Daleks as he did, Voldemort.

The Daleks or was it Davros who influenced them to such a great extent, they both shared ideals with Voldemort, racial purity, megalomania…

Actually, as Harry reflected that was all that he really knew about Voldemort, while flipping through the various tomes (and they really were tomes) there weren't many that really got into the ideas behind Voldemort and his followers aside from the whole 'blood purity' thing that Malfoy spouted last year.

"Harry…?"

"Harry?"

"Do you think he's alright Doctor?"

"Just a bit of thought behind the eyes, my teachers always said was a dangerous thing."

Harry blinked, he'd been caught up in one of his thought wonderings. "Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about, thinking is a marvellous thing Harry, I often talk to myself. They're some of the best conversations in the universe, chatting to oneself, don't you think Romana?"

"Certainly Doctor, yes of course."

"Now, a gift." The Doctor withdrew a small box from his pockets and handed it to Harry.

Harry looked at it, the Doctor grinned and nodded.

Inside was a small slightly flat sphere, with an indent in it. Harry looked over at the Doctor, his expression querying him.

"Given your tendency to get into dangerous situations." The Doctor started.

"You can talk Doctor." Romana added.

"Yes, but a citizen of the universe such as I has had over 400 years experience." He said sitting up a little straighter.

"I don't think we should be calling on who has a more dangerous life, after last year I'm not sure how much more dangerous Hogwarts can get."

"Brave heart Harry. This will hopefully be of use. It's a Spacio-Temporal Emergency Beacon."

"A Spacio-Temporal Emergency Beacon." Harry repeated. The Doctor nodded.

"Keep it with you in the direst of emergencies, when you, and only you push it and it will send a signal to the TARDIS and alert that you're in trouble, the TARDIS will lock on where and when and it'll send me straight to you."

"And whatever trouble I find myself in."

"Trouble is where function best, isn't that right K9?"

"Affirmative Master."

"And something from me." Romana put her gift in front of him.

It was another dark crystalline rock.

"It enhances certain energies, the Doctor explained the theory along your…your abilities function and this might allow for temporary enhancement. Or it might do nothing, this is all a little new to me." She said with a smile brushing her hair over her shoulder with one hand.

Harry nodded in slight understanding, the dark crystal was large enough to hold and tapered out to a point, if he could hold it in front of his wand…maybe nothing would happen as Romana said.

Later that night, after he had seen the Doctor, Romana and K9 off on their way, the police box's noise of dematerialisation seemingly not disturbing anyone in the surrounding areas. Harry sat down on his bed in front of him; a book on one of the most "notorious criminals" and a bag of jelly babies. Perhaps this great criminal would, like Salyavin and the Doctor end up being a 'boyhood hero' of his. Stranger things, after all had happened.

--//

As Harry tried to push himself up, to grab at the crystalline rock, the rock he'd been given, that he'd kept in his pocket ever since he'd mastered the Patronus charm, he knew he'd need to use it. Earlier, with Hermione he hadn't been ready, too busy encouraging her to help.

But now, as the dementors approached faster and faster and unconsciousness came closer and closer he was sure, as he tried to grab at his pocket he was sure he saw…it couldn't be…it couldn't…

The dark ward dissolved, Harry had the sensation of flying. A blur of colours and shapes rushed past him, he could feel the blood in his ears pounding, then suddenly with a whompth, he felt solid ground on his feet once more.

"Hermione what?"

"In here." She said quickly grabbing and dragging him toward a broom closet.

"Hermione what, how?"

"Harry, we've gone back in time…three hours."

A chill went down his back, time travel…

"Fascinating." He whispered a grin forming on his face. It wasn't anything like the Doctor had talked about, more an HG Wells Time Machine experience, without the time machine. He'd certainly have something to chat to the Doctor about when he next 'dropped in'.

"Fascinating that's all you say?" She stared at him.

Harry was caught up in his thoughts as Hermione explained where and when they were.

"So how did you get that hour glass thing, _that's _your time machine." Harry asked amazed, thought he admonished himself, he shouldn't have been amazed after all two of his friends were aliens, one travelled around in a police box. The other travelled around annoying the Doctor, 'being evil' according to him, the Magister was just…another sort of person, Time Lord.

"It's a Time Turner Harry…"

Harry nodded as she explained, but he had to stop her. "You're using a time machine to take extra classes."

"Yes Harry, but I don't understand what Dumbledore wants us to do? Why did he tell us to go back three hours? How's this going to help Sirius?"

Harry nodded for a moment, thinking, he decided to leave the question of using a time machine to take extra classes for another time. After everything the Doctor had said about time travel to find it here…it boggled belief, even after all this it was unbelievable.

Harry thought for a moment and then explained his plan to Hermione.

"Dumbledore said – he just told us where the window is – the window of Flitwick's office! Where they've got Sirius locked up ! We've got to fly Buckbeak up to the window and rescue Sirius! Sirius can escape on Buckbeak – they can escape together!"

"If we manage that without being seen, it'll be a miracle!"

"Hermione" Harry started curiously. "what if we just run in there" He motioned toward Hagrid's hut "and grabbed Scabbers?"

It was of course against various elements of time travel, but he and Hermione were already crossing along their own time streams, so they were obviously breaking some rules or maybe…

"No! Don't you understand?" She said in a terrified whisper. "We're breaking one of the most important wizarding laws! Nobody's supposed to change time, nobody! You heard what Dumbledore said, if we're seen…"

Harry pondered this information, and was determined to talk to the Doctor, or the Magister about this. Maybe they weren't changing the past at all, maybe they were _being _the past. Maybe they were always a part of the past and now they were just living through that bit were the puzzle pieces fell into place.

Harry shook his head, time travel was complicated. Even when you were experiencing it, it was just very complicated rather than being an outside observer.

Or maybe, Harry thought to himself, maybe they were writing over the past, changing it subtly.

Harry and Hermione had just watched Crookshanks, themselves and everyone else go through to the Shrieking Shack. Being a bystander in all this was weird; he'd told Hermione just that, despite his friendship with two time travellers it was still weird.

"Harry there's still something I don't understand…why didn't the Dementors get Sirius? I don't remember them coming, and then I think I passed out…there were so many of them."

Harry sat down beside Hermione, as he did so the crystalline rock dug into his leg, reminding him.

He explained to her, seeing the Patronus galloping across the lake as he passed out. Hermione's mouth was slightly open throughout the explanation.

"But what was it?"

"A Patronus, a real, powerful one."

"But who conjured it?"

Harry smiled. "I thought it was my father.

"It could've been a teacher." She leapt in, Harry looked at her.

"I was just about to continue." He said irritably.

"Sorry Harry."

"I know it couldn't have been, but now with your time turner, I think, I know it was me."

"You."

"Us." He said. Hermione blinked as realisation took hold. "You mean we…Harry."

"This means that we were always going to time travel, maybe that's how Dumbledore knew what to do."

"You don't mean….destiny?"

"No." Harry shook his head. He'd asked the Doctor about this, when he'd spent time with him and Jo Grant, the concept of time travel was curious, and while when he was 11 it was hard enough to wrap his head around, now experiencing it made a tangled sort of sense. "It's all…" Harry struggled to put into words "Wibbly, web of time stuff."

"Web of time…stuff?" Harry nodded, Hermione didn't seem so sure.

Now they were standing out on the lake, just hidden by a bush, Harry started to remove the rock from his pocket.

"What's that Harry?" Hermione hissed.

"Something a friend gave, I think…" Harry said focusing on some of the happiest moments he could think of, it was already welling up in him.

"Hermione, a Patronus works by banishing dementors, I wonder what would happen if it was supercharged?" Harry felt a grin forming over his face, Hermione stared at him as he stood up, holding the rock in front of his wand.

"Harry what are you…"

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Harry shouted, energy, passed through his wand, hitting the alien rock and exploded with such a force it blew him backwards.

"Harry!" Hermione pulled him up. He watched as a huge deer ran towards the dementors, there was a shrieking and a smell. Harry wrinkled his nose, it was like burning hair…and other things he didn't want to think about.

"Harry the dementors…" Hermione said with wonder and some disgust, they were ripping into flames as the stag ran around them, it wasn't just banishing them, it was tearing them apart, ripping them to shreds, burning them.

"Fantastic!" Harry exclaimed quietly.

Then the stag came cantering back to them.

"Prongs." Harry whispered, his hand stretched out to the Patronus. It felt warm, then it dissipated. "Fantastic!" Harry said again to himself as he grinned looking out across the lake, there was barely any evidence that the dementors had been present, save for a few pieces of burning fabric.

"Harry!" Hermione dragged him back behind their hiding place. "What did you do? What was that?" She seemed on the edge of panic.

"I told you, that was me, us being the past."

"And that rock?" Harry looked down at the rock, it had changed colour from a black to a white-ish grey. "Something a friend gave me, it intensifies energy…it worked didn't it." He smiled to himself. Hermione eyed him.

"It didn't just banish it destroyed the dementors. That was more than just advanced magic Harry…that was, destroying them completely…" Hermione said to herself.

"And if I hadn't we'd both be dead Hermione." He said calmly, but mentally thought back, the first time around he hadn't smelt anything or heard anything even though he was on the verge of passing out the first time…

--//

Harry couldn't believe it, they'd rescued Buckbeak, Sirius and now despite having travelled in time, they were running out of time, running back to where they had started from.

Maybe this wasn't like the Doctor travelled in time, this was about living the same time over again. Which he supposed limited the time travel to a certain time, lest you travel so far back that you lived the same time over and ended up older than when you started, drastically older, Harry made a mental note that he should ask Hermione whether she actually gained any time through this form of time travel, which would make her a year older…or would it?

Harry came face to face with Dumbledore, caught up in following Hermione and pondering the nature of time travel. How did Hermione do it, time travel and not think about all this, didn't she understand how complicated it was?

"Well?"

"We did it…" Hermione started to say.

Dumbledore beamed at them. "Well done" He listened for a sound inside the hospital wing. "I think you've gone, too. Get inside, I'll lock you in."

--//

After speaking with Remus and Dumbledore Harry found himself outside Professor McGonagall's office.

Despite the prophecy (or whatever it was) that Trelawney had given him about Sirius, it was one version of the future. Harry had decided, through his time travelling that he could alter it, even if it was just slightly, it meant that destiny didn't mean anything, getting a glimpse wasn't all that it was cracked up to be, he certainly didn't want to waste his time at Hogwarts to grasp at a glimpse of the future. He wanted to experience it, or prepare for it, not be given vague interpretations of it, especially from Trelawney.

"Mr Potter."

"Professor." Harry said calmly as he walked up to her desk.

"I'd like to put in a petition to change one of my classes."

"Oh?" She peered at him over her glasses. "From what class into which class if I may ask Mr Potter?"

"Divination, to Ancient Runes professor."

"That is a lot of work you will need to catch up on Mr Potter, why if I might ask, aside from Sybil's charming teaching methods?"

Harry pondered for a moment. "I want to make my own future Professor. I don't think I'm going to find it in the bottom of a tea cup." Then he smiled. "Only if it's a nicely brewed one, at the end of a hard, complicated day, and then I'll enjoy the tea, not the leaves."

Harry was surprised when the Professor laughed.

"Yes Mr Potter, I think you can change classes, I will have a reading list and extra course work for you before the end of school and inform Sybil that you…will no longer attend her classes."

"Thank you Professor." Harry smiled to her, she still had a smile on her face.

"Good day Mr Potter."

--//

The Doctor danced around the console, flicking switches and pulling levers.

Charley watched in amusement at his florid display at flying the ship. He turned to look at her grinning at him.

"What's so funny?"

"You, with all this, it's like you're some fabulous industrialist flying his magical contraption, and it's wonderful."

"Charley, Charley, Charley…you always see the best in me." He grinned and continued his dance.

"So where are we heading for this time…" Charley mused to herself as she walked over to the side of the console that displayed the planet information along with the time and date.

"Humanian Era, Earth. Oh."

"Oh. Earth is my favourite planet." He almost pouted, Charley glanced at him.

"I didn't mean it like that Doctor, I just thought we were going somewhere weird and wild, a real _adventure_."

"Because you Miss Pollard as an Edwardian Adventuress deserve to go somewhere wild, with giant rabbits, a pink elephants and purple horses with yellow spots." He said grinning at her. Charley turned away in a rush.

"That's not very nice Doctor, you're just being stupid!"

"No, no, no, no Charley, I would never be stupid, not like that." He rushed around to face her. I really have met a giant rabbit, a pink elephant and a purple horse with yellow spots."

"Really, let me guess and you all met with Lord Byron on the shore or Lake Geneva for hot cross buns and chocolate éclairs."

"No, but that would have worked also. It was the 3rd Galactic Peace Conference." He said as he continued his moves around the console. "A load of boring speeches about the fate of the galaxy, talking instead of doing."

"And that's what we're up to Doctor?"

"Hmm?"

"Doing instead of talking?" She repeated.

"Yes, yes, yes, Charley of course we are."

"So, again Doctor, what is on Earth?"

"Earth, lots of things." He said with a grin.

"I meant why are we going, is Earth going to be invaded by the evil Drahvins, or the secret cult of Sutekh?" She said putting spooky emphasis on the words.

The Doctor stopped in his track. "No, not yet I don't think, where did you hear that names?" He asked curiously.

"Your library Doctor. Father would have a fit if he'd ever seen a library like yours, have you _got_ a system or is it just random?"

"Maybe it's a random system Charley, they're often the best sort, keeps you on your toes."

"So…?"

"A friend Charley, an old friend."

"Like the Brigadier?"

"Yes, yes, yes. He's someone I've known for a long time."

"He must be pretty old then." The Doctor looked up at her. "Well not old, just if you've known him a long time."

"I like to think of myself as barely middle aged Charley." The Doctor reached into his waist coat, watching his pocket watch and then seemingly randomly wrenched down the handbrake on the TARDIS console.

Charley's ears were filled with the noise of materialisation.

"Excellent." He smiled and wondered over to the row of filing cabinets and began to rummage through them, throwing various things over his shoulder.

"Now _what_ are you looking for Doctor?"

"Oh, this and that…ah." He said removing a dark brown sleeveless top.

Charley wrinkled her nose it smelt, odd, like old leaves, or leather that had been in the sun for too long.

"What's that?"

"A vest, weaved by the fire transporters of Hyspero, now if I can just find the…" He handed the top to Charely and pulled out another draw, and turned around grinning at her, they were a pair of trousers, lighter in colour.

"And what do 'fire transporters' do when they're at home."

"They don't have a home, wanderers. Nomads, selling their wares, fire, Charley, fire! Riding across the great plains of Hyspero. Their fires have warmed the chilled bones of travellers, cooked the spoils of bandits, and kept lit the way for thieves and assassins."

"It sounds a charming place."

"It is." He smiled and grabbed a thin leather satchel and stuffed the two items of clothing into it."

"But why have you emptied half of the draws out for it?"

"Very useful, impervious to fire, weaved in the desert by talking spiders and dancing snakes to the tune of twinkle twinkle little star…"

"You're making it up."

"Only the song part, they wouldn't tell me the name of the song." He said with a broad smile.

Charley shook her head at the Doctor's grinning face.

"Come on don't dawdle Charley, we're off to see the wizard." He said up on the stairs by the door.

Charley stepped out of the TARDIS and looked around, expecting to see castles or _something_ instead the TARDIS was parked on the side of a road, all around them were houses, all exactly the same.

"Like gingerbread men aren't they, with their gingerbread houses all the same, in a row." The Doctor said Charley managed not to jump, _just_.

"So when are we Doctor?"

"Didn't you see when you were studying the console?"

"Not quite, the dials were still moving slightly."

"Undecided…through the whirligig of time." He mused and licked a finger holding it up to the air. "It's the 20th of July 1994, we're in England."

"Nineteen Ninety Four?" Charely repeated. It didn't look like much, even when they met the Brigadier it hadn't been much, this was even less so…it was so repetitive.

"Little Whinging."

"Little what?"

"In Surrey." The Doctor said as they turned a corner down another street.

"Doctor. This doesn't look like somewhere a wizard would live."

"Appearances can be deceiving. Here we are." He said indicating number 4.

"Here?"

"Yes." He walked up to the door and knocked eight times.

When the door opened a rather large man was standing in the door way.

"Hello there Vernon." There was an icy coolness Charley rarely heard in the Doctor's voice. He was still smiling, but it was a much cooler smile.

"What, how, how do you know my name?"

"We've met before" He smiled "Though you wouldn't remember, I'm the Doctor by the way, this is Charley."

"Hello there."

"You, you…"

"Me. Is Harry around?" The Doctor pushed his way past Vernon and into the house. "I do hope you've been treating him nicely."

"Boy!" The man shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Vernon who is it?" A thin woman followed by a…Charley blanched at the size of the…person she was sure her eyes bulged out slightly. Moderation was clearly not something his parents had strived for. If he was their son, maybe he was some odd experiment or something, she turned to ask the Doctor, he just nodded to her.

"Coming Uncle Vernon." Said a young man's voice as Charley heard footsteps running down the stairs.

"Boy, these _people_ are here to see you. I don't want any of _that_ stuff going on."

"Hello Harry!" The Doctor rushed forward enveloping Harry in a hug.

"Doctor!" Harry said, his voice muffled by the velvet of the Doctor's coat.

"Hello Harry." The Doctor blinked and looked around. Vernon and they other two and disappeared into the kitchen. "Oh, looks like Vernon has disappeared. Pity." Charley could tell he didn't mean it at all.

"Charley, I'd like you to meet Harry Potter, one of my best ever friends. Harry this is Charley Pollard one of my best friends ever."

"Hi."

"Hello." She took his offered hand. It was rough, calloused in odd areas of his hand, as though he spent a lot of time writing, her father had pointed out to her accountants often had calluses from all the writing they did.

"Why don't we head out for some lunch Harry, I'm sure your relatives won't mind."

"Okay Doctor." Harry said and then half way up the stairs he said "I've got loads to tell you and loads of questions."

"Questions, for me? Harry, Harry, Harry, you shouldn't have, questions are what I love!"

As soon as Harry had disappeared up the stairs the Doctor had his sonic screwdriver out opening a lock on the cupboard under the stairs.

"What are you doing Doctor?"

"Just making sure of something Charley, just making sure…" The Doctor wrenched the door open and sighed, there was nothing but broken toys in the cupboard and old rags.

"What were you expecting to find in there?"

"Nothing, Charley. That was what I expected." He said shutting the door.

Harry came running down the stairs to meet the Doctor and opened the door, a grin on his face.

"Don't you need to tell your relatives where you're going?" Charley asked as she passed him out the door.

"Them?" Harry glanced back as he shut the door. "They don't care where I am as long as I'm home to cook their meal for them." He said with a shrug and a bitter tone.

"So Harry, how have you been?"

"Good…and I have so much to tell you Doctor!"

"Yes, yes, yes. Lets find somewhere for lunch." The Doctor said walking ahead rubbing his hands together leaving Harry and Charley walking together.

"Is he always so…?"

"Bouncy?" Charley tried.

"Yeah."

"Don't you know him?" She asked.

"I do…but I've met…different aspects of him."

"So the Doctor tells me you're a wizard."

Harry blinked. "Yeah. And your self?"

"Edwardian Adventuress."

"Cool." Harry said with a smile. "So how long have you been travelling with the Doctor? What dangerous things have you gotten into?"

"What do you mean?" Charley asked, though there had been some…maybe more than _some_ dangerous things.

"You know he's travelled with other people…" Harry asked slowly.

"Yes." The Doctor had mentioned other people.

"He can't help himself, danger follows him, a bit like me." Harry chuckled.

Harry's eyebrows were raised, an airship, she'd escaped an airship on what sounded like a dragon. Though he supposed that considering he'd flown around on Buckbeak they were probably even on that front.

--//

"So Harry what did you want to ask me?" The Doctor said once they were seated in a restaurant that Harry didn't even know was in Little Whinging, only some doors from the library, he supposed he'd never had cause to walk the extra few doors down from the library. The Doctor had a hint of pride as he asked the question.

"Oh so great Time Lord you are?" Harry joked. The Doctor stared back at him, brushing a piece of imaginary lint from his jacket, Harry met his gaze.

"Honestly you two." Charley said with a huff making Harry grin. "What?" He looked at her.

"Just reminded me of a friend."

"So what did you want to ask the Doctor, before you get into a staring or insult match."

"I've had both become the start of excellent conversations Charley."

"I time travelled Doctor!" Harry announced, the Doctor snapped his head around and stared at him.

"You…?"

"Yeah, not what I expected, damn confusing." Harry started.

The Doctor mused to himself as Harry told his story. The Web of Time was a complicated and sometimes fickle thing, and Harry and his friend Hermione's involvement did seem somewhat reckless. No worse than he'd done himself, but it being Harry's first foray into the fourth dimension it was of concern. Though Harry seemed both concerned and elated that he had altered the past, slightly, perhaps for the better. Again something that he had done often, and would continue to do. Perhaps his experiences were rubbing off on Harry.

Then there was the casual way that Harry's friend Hermione had been given a 'time turner' (a device he'd never heard of, but he added it to his growing mental list of things to investigate at a later date) to take more classes. That was sheer lunacy, risking crossing your own timeline, frequently throughout a year, it was beyond lunacy. It was breaking one of the laws of time.

At least Harry seemed to indicate wizards had some rules, logical ones, not seeing or meeting yourself. But even so, the amount of temporal energy that must have been swimming around Hogwarts…

"Of course!" He exclaimed. Harry and Charley stared at him. Harry had was just finishing telling Charley about his second year at Hogwarts.

"Doctor?" Harry asked curiously.

"There must have been a huge" He made a grand gesture with his hands, Harry made to grab the Doctor's wine glass, but Charley was already holding it steady, they grinned at each other. "Amounts of temporal energy around Hogwarts. It would allow you to alter your past, becoming it so easily. It probably explains why your professor had her 'premonition'."

"You mean bits of the future were leaking back and she was picking up on it, like an old radio."

"Yes, yes, yes Charley exactly, that's it!"

"Why Trelawney though?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Hermione was probably using her time turner first to get to that class, so your teacher was one of the first exposed. Though she could have a small level of temporal sensitivity." Harry scoffed as the Doctor added "It would have to be very small, otherwise she would have noticed instantly your friend's time stream crossing."

"Ah ha."

"You actually understood that?" Charley looked at him.

"Yeah, I think I do."

"You do?" The Doctor looked at him curiously.

"Remember when we sat around and chatted about that alternate future with the Daleks and all?"

"Oh yes…such a time ago, I was young then."

"You're not now?" Harry raised an eyebrow.

The Doctor grinned at him. "We're all young, just depends how you count."

--//

They were taking the long way back to Privet Drive, through the park that was when the Doctor presented him with his early birthday gift.

Harry ran his hands over the material, it, like many of the Doctor's gifts felt other worldly. Though he wasn't sure what he'd need clothing that was impervious to fire for.

"Keep it for a rainy day." He said mysteriously.

"Is it going to be raining fire anytime soon Doctor?"

The Doctor just shrugged.

"Web of Time, I know." Harry muttered and replaced the clothing in the satchel.

Then before Harry was aware of it they were walking up to a police box.

Charley watched Harry as he saw the TARDIS and saw him grin at it.

"Still haven't fixed the Chameleon Circuit."

"I _like_ her like that."

"I remember you going on about how it got _stuck_, that it used to be all these amazing things."

"Don't you like it?" The Doctor sounded hurt. Harry ran his fingers over the wood, which wasn't wood, there was a faint humming under his fingertips.

"Well Harry, look after yourself, no giant snakes." The Doctor hugged him again and opened up the TARDIS doors.

"Of course not Doctor, but trouble does seem to follow me, as it does you." Harry said grinning at him as he disappeared into the TARDIS.

"It was very nice meeting you Harry."

"As with you Charley." Harry said.

"Take care." She smiled kindly.

"And you. You'd better go, I'm sure he's getting impatient."

"He can get impatient." She huffed and then hugged him and stepped into the TARDIS.

Harry watched as the TARDIS growled at the space around him and whipped the leaves on the ground up as it disappeared.

--//

_For the Fourth Doctor this takes place just after the (unbroadcast) story Shada (and a little bit after The Horns of Nimon), Shada had some nice themes to pick up on that I felt went well with this chapter and the Doctor and Romana. _

_So far this the first part of this chapter was one of the hardest parts to write. Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor is quite a hard character to get a hold on. When you watch him it's all there, not just the delivery but the body language, how he moves through the scenes. Capturing that…often madness was tricky._

_This chapter actually ended with Harry reading about Sirius, but then I decided to add the 'time travel' section of Prisoner of Azkaban. Which I'm mostly happy with, I've actually rewritten it a few times, I didn't want to make it seem like Harry couldn't have produced the Patronus without the rock, that's what he did the 'first time around', then the second time around he destroys them. _

_The last section also again wasn't going to be in this chapter, I've actually written a plan for this story, one that I keep swapping around and the Eighth Doctor part I've moved around a bit, trying to find where it would fit. But there's a nice bit of symmetry, Harry meets the Fourth at the start of this chapter and then the Eighth at the end._

_Just one note about Charley, she's from the 1930s, The Wizard of Oz the film was released in 1939. The book was published in 1900, but doesn't (as far as I can tell) contain the words "we're off to see the Wizard". (Which is why she doesn't think about other bits of The Wizard of Oz, I had some other references I was going to throw in, but as that section is from Charley's POV it wouldn't have worked)._

_I put in the various things about Harry being unsure about Divination because…well with the Doctor's influence I don't think he'd want to be in it, and his experiences in this chapter show that more so. So he'll be studying Ancient Runes instead._

_These author notes keep getting longer as I finish this chapter. _

_Writing the Eighth Doctor's dialogue is almost as hard as the Fourth, but instead trying to pack in Tom Baker's performance I'm fitting in Paul McGann's performance and all the technobabble that explains the time travel elements in Prisoner of Azkaban._

_The Eighth Doctor and Charley is from Big Finish's audio dramas, and is set after Minuet in Hell. _

_Thanks for reading._


	7. Chapter 7

--

**Chapter 07**

"Oh my god, this is amazing." The young woman said her eyes wide, a red scarf wrapped around her neck against the blowing wind.

"It sure is honey." Drawled the man beside her.

"Honey?" She looked over at the man.

"I'm trying 20th century slang." He said innocently, an expression that had a thin layer of innocence.

"Try a little harder." Rose said hitting him lightly on the chest. "I'm no one's honey, and what's with the Western accent?"

"The team seems to like a bit of a foreigner."

"We're all foreigners 'ere, that's what travel's all about. Enjoyin' the show?" The Doctor glanced at Jack. "And the view?"

"It's amazing, I once saw something like this on planet out past the Isop Galaxy. _They_ didn't where such amazing outfits though."

Rose ignored the Doctor and Jack's banter as each of the players came to a hover and slid from their…there wasn't anyway to put it, brooms. These people were flying brooms.

"This is mad, totally mad."

"Do you want to go have a chat with them?" The Doctor asked.

"Can we?"

"All access pass." The Doctor patted his pocket containing his psychic paper and grinned, Rose grinned back. "There you go."

"Thanks!" She turned to run down the steps then looked back to Jack and the Doctor "Aren't you coming?"

"Enjoy it, I walked through the change rooms of the Bulgarian team before."

"Captain Flirt strikes again."

"Can I help it if they don't mark the entrances and exits?" Jack smiled innocently.

Jack and the Doctor watched Rose run off down the steps.

Jack leaned on the railing.

"This is England isn't it?"

"How'd you know?"

"This is a Quidditch Stadium, I remember reading something about it, long time ago."

"The past is another country." The Doctor said looking around.

"I was told that time travellers don't usually get involved, the Time Agency had an accord with _them_." Jack said awkwardly, his memories or lack-there-of of his time with the agency still royally annoyed him.

"I'm not the Time Agency Jack, or any other crackpot organisation."

"So what are we doing here, and what's that gadget in your pants?" Jack nodded towards the Doctor.

"'Gadget in my pants'?" The Doctor repeated, almost offended.

"The kind that usually impresses."

"Shut it you. What kind of description is 'gadget'?" The Doctor shook his head.

"Hey, I'd like to think of myself as a well spoken kinda guy, suave, easy going, so what is it we're doing here, the dawn end of the 20th century."

"It's when everything changes Jack, here and soon." The Doctor withdrew a device from his pocket, studying it, Jack walked around and looked over his shoulder.

"'Oh Doctor what is it?'" Jack said putting on a high voice. The Doctor grinned.

"Just something waiting and watching for someone to turn up." He paused. "A little early."

"We couldn't have come late."

"Better early than late."

"Tell that to…" The Doctor fixed him with a stare. Jack grinned. "Come on, lets go and rescue from all those Quidditch players and their big brooms." Jack took the Doctor's arm and led him away from the stands.

--//

Harry followed Ron and Hermione through the sea of green that was the Irish supporter's camp sites, they stopped once again because of the congestion ahead of them leading to the tap for the water.

Harry turned away from Ron and Hermione and looked around, sniffing the air, _breathing_ in the experience. Looking around in amazement, through the amazing, unbelievable brilliance of it all.

"Come on Harry, looks like we're moving again." Hermione called to him. Harry spun back around to look at Hermione, the path had opened up quite a bit.

"Right okay." He said and turned back, he blinked. Something blue that certainly _wasn't_ a tent caught his eye. It couldn't be…but then Hermione tugged on his jacket and he was pulled back into the throng of people.

--//

"Having fun?" Rose looked up as the Doctor and Jack wandered up, arm in arm.

"Yeah, Aiden and Troy have just been explaining the rules to me. It's way more complicated than that game on…" The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her. "That place, with those things." Rose said after a moment.

"Very concise Rose."

"Thanks." She smirked at Jack.

"The Doctor says we've got to head off." Jack disentangled himself from the Doctor, who seemed not to notice that Jack had his arm around his.

"Can't we stay a little longer?"

"People to see, places to be, you know." The Doctor said as he looked at his watch.

"You'll be at the game tonight won't ya?" Lynch asked them.

"Yeah." Rose said as she accepted Jack's hand up from the bench she'd been sharing with the players. "I mean, probably, depends what he wants to do." She jabbed a thumb towards the Doctor.

"He is right here. You'll be fantastic, a memorable play." He grinned. "Come on." He said turning an walking towards the exit.

"Bit of rude, just leaving like that." Rose raised her voice towards the Doctor.

"Doctor says we need to be back at the TARDIS."

"Why?"

"He's being all mysterious." Jack said as they made their way down from the stadium.

--//

As Mr Weasley introduced him, Harry felt Ludo Bagman's eyes dart to his forehead.

He's for a while been tempted to wear a hat or continue to sculpt his hair in a way that covered up the scar.

Sometimes it annoyed him, sometimes he liked to catch people's eye when they began staring at the scar, the last time he'd seen the Master he'd said that focus was important.

"Mr Weasley, I'll just go and get some more water." He murmured quietly to him.

"Harry do you want some help?" Hermione almost leapt from his seat.

"I should be fine Hermione, I know the way." That wasn't the only reason why he wanted to go. Harry thought himself, he wanted to check if he was right about what he saw earlier in the day.

Back in the swathes of green Harry stopped and took several calming breaths of air and closed his eyes and then opened them again, shuffling his feet in the trampled grass where he was standing. Then there, in the corner of his eye he saw it.

Harry tread purposefully in long determined strides towards it.

It seemed to be being completely ignored.

Harry knew the wizards were used to odd things, and while many of the tents looked like miniature houses he thought that maybe someone might have noticed a large blue box with the words 'Police Box' on it. Though everyone was walking around past it.

Harry let the kettle drop from his hands, so that he could place his hands on the wood, that wasn't wood's surface.

Just prickling under the surface was a feeling, sensation, a humming, it almost wasn't there, not like the last time he'd felt it, now it was far more subtler, yet the box itself seemed bigger, more imposing, as much as a Police Box could he assumed.

"Can I help you?" Harry spun around at the woman's voice.

--//

Rose had somehow lost the Doctor and Jack on the way back to the TARDIS, she knew where it was, she'd been to a festival or two that rivaled this…the Quidditch Cup thing, so finding her way back to the TARDIS wasn't difficult. But what she found beside it was…odd.

The kid was tallish, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, and he was listening, or feeling the side of the TARDIS.

"Can I help you?" The kid stepped away from the TARDIS and then looked at her, she suddenly became aware of his bright green eyes, and an odd scar on his forehead, both seemed to radiate out at her.

"I'm just looking for someone." He said casually, stuffing his hands inside the old army jacket he was wearing. He seemed pretty nervous. Shifting his weight back and forth between his feet. She seen shoplifters move like that when she'd been at Henrik's.

"Right mate. Aren't we all, why don't just head on back to where your friends…" She trailed off, he was still staring at her.

"I will remain here."  He said in a monotone, she could feel his eyes staring at her. He wasn't going anywhere, it had been hard enough waiting for an opportunity to sneak off a this point, let alone later.

"You will remain…here."

"Yes." Harry smiled to himself.

"You will remain here." She repeated again.

"Stop that." The Doctor seemed to burst in and Rose couldn't remember why she what she was saying, or why.

"Fascinating. Casual hypnotist or professional mind control artist? Captain Jack Harkness by the way." Jack walked past her and walked over to the kid. Rose blinked shaking her head.

--//

"Fascinating. Casual hypnotist or professional mind control artist? Captain Jack Harkness by the way." If anyone could have been described as having a swagger it was this guy Harry thought to himself.

"Harry Potter, nice to meet you."

"And are you…"

"An amateur compared to some."

"A talented amateur from that little performance. Quite a feat."

"Harry Potter. Still using _his_ tricks then?" The Doctor walked up a firm grin on his face. Harry grinned and met the Doctor in a hug. "More than tricks, sorry, didn't know she was your companion."

"Oi, what did you just do?" Rose asked pointing at him.

Harry looked at the Doctor shrugged.

"An ill-advised technique learnt from a…" The Doctor stopped, and searched for the right word.

"A megalomaniac with control issues?" Harry offered humour present in his voice.

"Yes."

"Funny, that's what he calls you, and that's what he's said about you, the last time I saw him."

"Who's this him you're talking about?" Jack asked.

"A friend." The Doctor and Harry answered. Harry raised an eyebrow at the Doctor.

"How about a walk Harry?" The Doctor said patting him on the back. "'Ow about a cup of tea for when we get back?"

"Oh, sure sir, anything else the tea lady can get?" Jack said as he caught the key the Doctor chucked at him.

"Some biscuits?" Rose said as she made to follow the Doctor and Harry.

"No, just a private chat Rose."

"Sorry." Harry said by way of an apology as the Doctor walked off, stuffing his hands in his pockets leaving Rose standing watching the pair walk off.

"'Ow're you doing?"

"Good, you Doctor?" Harry asked placing a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged away. "I'm fine."

"I met my Godfather!" Harry said as he attempted to break the silence that had somehow formed.

"Fantastic! How was he?" The Doctor suddenly grinned.

Harry started began to tell the Doctor about Sirius, carefully omitting the stuff about time travel as he wasn't quite sure when this regeneration of the Doctor was, in relation to the Doctor's overall timeline compared to his.

"Time travel gives me a headache."

"Try livin' it. You've told me though, fuzzy though it is."

"About?"

"Your adventures time travelling last year."

"Oh, right. Hermione's not doing the extra subjects so no more time travelling for her."

"Right, good."

"Or is your memory a bit fuzzy in your old age?"

"What?" He stared at him.

"How long has it been since I last saw you? For you I mean, not for me." Harry paused biting his lip. The Doctor seemed…a lot more wary, closeted, careful, grumpy even, than any times he'd seen him before.

"I'm, I'm sorry about…Rose before I didn't know." The Doctor said softly.

The Doctor looked over at him, brightening up.

"It's nothing, just _him_ and what you _he's_ taught you."

"All useful, _he_ has said what he's done Doctor, but then two sides of a coin and all that. He's obviously not on Voldemort's level, but he's hardly the mad as a hatter bloke you've made him out to be, maybe I just haven't met the mad regeneration."

"Maybe. So you're here with the Weasleys then?"

"Just Mr Weasley, and Ron's brothers and sister, and Hermione. So what have you been up to since I last saw you?"

"Lots of things, travelling, doing things, plenty of things." The Doctor said quickly. Too quickly for Harry's liking, he didn't want to push the issue though.

"So did you pick up the accent somewhere?"

"What you mean?" He asked innocently.

"Well…I wasn't Gallifrey had a north." Harry chuckled, but stopped, as the Doctor flinched as he finished is sentence.

"Lots of planets have a North."

"Okay, fine if lots of planets can have slums, down and out places for revolution to brew, they can have a north." He joked again, it seemed to bring a slight smile to the Doctor's face.

"Let's go and see what Jack and Rose have got up to."

"Making tea I assumed."

Harry raised an eyebrow, Rose and Jack had set up a table and chairs under a large umbrella outside the TARDIS.

"So where'd you pick up Jack?"

"Pick him up?" The Doctor asked throwing himself down into a chair.

"Would you like me to start?" Harry asked curiously.

"Yeah, I would, lets see if you've learnt anything."

"Plenty. Wrist thingy, and a gun, didn't think you liked guns."

"He doesn't, I'm still looking for a new battery. Here." He passed the gun over to Harry. "I'll pour the tea. Harry?"

"What…oh Black, dash of milk." Harry weighed the gun in his hand. He'd never really felt the weight of a weapon, aside from his wand which was located securely within one of his unfeasibly large pockets of his jacket. It wasn't as heavy as its materials made it seem like. "It's got a nice weight to to. Not too heavy." Harry said as he passed it back to Jack.

"So you know the Doctor then?" Rose asked, nibbling on a biscuit.

"Yeah, I've known him for…" He looked over at the Doctor who was sipping a mug of tea. "A long while. Seems like a short time, and a long time all at once."

"That's the problem with time travel, and travellers, never a fixed reference point."

"Sounds like you know a thing about it Jack."

"The Captain was a Time agent, and a conman." The Doctor stated.

"Reformed conman." He added.

"So where'd you find the Doctor then. Sorry Harry Potter." Harry offered Rose his hand, the Doctor had told him about her, but it was only polite to introduce himself properly.

"Rose Tyler. What'd you mean find him?"

"Well you don't just walk into a police box…not often anyway." Harry shared a look with the Doctor who looked at him and Rose over his mug of tea.

"Well I was working at this shop…"

Autons…he smiled to himself and Daleks, supposedly the last Dalek ever, which made him want to ask a bunch of questions, but the Doctor and Rose seemed to share a silent moment regarding that one, so he didn't press it and Rose…Rose was from the future, not by much, but still. That mean that he was still yet to experience an Auton invasion attempt.

Time travel gave him a headache.

"Why are you grinning?" Rose was looking at him oddly.

"Just thinking, that was the first time you've seen an Auton right?"

"Yeah, when he dragged me into it all."

"Oi, you were just saying it's been 'brilliant'."

"That's what I said."

"So, you haven't heard of Black Thursday or the 'Great Dafodil Scare'" Harry mimed talking marks. "Maybe I was the only one who went looking for information." He mumbled to himself.

"What's Black Thursday and the Daffodil scare? Sounds like a couple of, what do you call it 'classical musical bands'?" Jack looked between the three of them. "Late 20th century popular music wasn't really my thing."

"Yeah you prefer swing."

"I love a good swingers party." Jack winked at Rose.

"It's the name of two Nestene attacks on Earth in the 1970s, that _should _have been kept secret."

"Look at you, all 'official secrets act'." Rose teased. Harry raised a surprised eyebrow at the Doctor who imperceivably shook his head, Harry shrugged. The Doctor had his secrets, it wasn't up to him to spill them to his newest friends.

"So how do you know about it then, you don't really look like the type to be breaking into secret facilities." Jack asked leaning into his chair.

"I do a lot of reading." He replied simply, and the information hadn't been that hard to find, the librarians in the Little Whinging library had been happy to order the microfilm of newspapers from around the time the Doctor had told him about when he'd been at UNIT. Harry was still amazed that, from the stories the Doctor had told him and what had turned up in the papers people still didn't believe in aliens, and the amount of alien invasions. That said he couldn't believe that despite London being evacuated in the 1960s and 70s the Wizarding World hadn't questioned it. Harry made a mental note, somehow to work it into the conversation with Hermione. He smirked he could just image it 'So Hermione, do you believe in aliens…?'.

"I've never heard of it."

"What about the Zygon Gambit, Yetis in the Underground? Plenty you don't know about, 'umans, perfectly ready to ignore what's staring you in the face."

"What?"

Harry grinned picking up on the Doctor's speech. "It was like last year, our teach was ill, Snape, he's one of our teachers, kept on going on about wolves, werewolves and how evil they were 'the big bad wolf is out to get us'. Too bad he was one of the best Defence teachers we had." Harry mused. Then looked over, Rose was staring at him.

"Do I have crumbs down my shirt?" Harry asked. Then the Doctor's watch beeped.

The Doctor whipped his head down to his watch. Harry was amazed he hadn't given himself whiplash.

"Right-o, time to head off."

"What, already? What about Aiden and the Irish team, they said I was a lucky charm."

"That's what all the boys say Rose, I've been a 'lucky charm' to plenty." Jack said as he exchanged a look with the Doctor. Harry rose from his chair as Jack flicked hidden switch and the table they'd been sitting around seemed to fold in on itself like a piece of origami.

"Real nice meeting ya Harry Potter." He offered him his hand. Harry shook it. "Maybe in a couple of years we can catch up when you're all grown up." Jack winked at him.

"Go on you, into the TARDIS." The Doctor pointed. "You too Rose."

"But what about…" She pulled a face at the Doctor. "It was great, talking and you know…"

"Yeah, maybe when time catches up with me too I'll come and see you and your mum."

"What'd you mean…" Rose asked as she was dragged lightly into the TARDIS by Jack.

As the door creaked close Harry walked over to the Doctor. "She doesn't know that…"

"This is Earth in the 1990s? Nup. Mysteries of time travel."

"And you say _he's_ sneaky." Harry was careful not to mention Magister's name, it didn't seem the best thing to do, this regeneration of the Doctor was…very different from others he'd known.

"I'm not sneaky, just Rose is…special."

This Doctor kept surprising him, that wasn't to say the others hadn't done that, just, Harry mentally shook his head, there seemed to be a huge weight on the Doctor's shoulders.

"Here we go Happy 14th. Something of use probably." The Doctor thrust the device at Harry smiling.

It was a thick rod about 10 inches long with what seemed like a jewel on top, it was sort of heavy also.

"Ummm…"

"It's a Tzun forcefield generator, something I…took out of Van Statten's hands."

"You nicked it."

"Removed a powerful piece of technology, you'd use it more."

"One use sort of thing." The Doctor nodded with a grin.

"Now you're getting it. Use it chuck it away."

"I'll keep it as a paperweight, I wouldn't want this turning up somewhere, it might cause a wacky paradox."

"No." He said quickly. "Now you should be getting back to your friends. The game will be startin' soon."

Harry found himself enveloped in a hug, a quite tight one. "Look after yourself Harry Potter."

"And you Doctor…and whatever it is that's going on with you." Harry looked into the Doctor's stormy eyes and held the look for a moment.

"Maybe one day, _you_ don't need to know now."

Harry thought about pushing it, but, shook his head and smiled. "Off you go then, amaze your companions and arrive somewhere fantastic." Harry said then added playfully. "Instead of deadly danger."

"I never do that!"

"Like I haven't gone looking for danger, it just…"

"Follows me around." The Doctor and Harry said together then laughed.

"See ya Harry." He said before stepping into the TARDIS.

None of the wizards looked up or even noticed as the blue police box mad an unearthly noise and disappeared from sight.

Harry stuffed the forcefield generator into his pocket and picked up the forgotten kettle, which had somehow filled with hot water at some point and made a quick beeline back to the tent.

"You were quick Harry." Hermione said as he walked back up to her.

"I was?" Harry said slightly puzzled. He was sure he'd been at least half an hour, if not more. "I mean. I was." He said at Hermione's puzzled expression. Obviously the Doctor, or the table, or the TARDIS or something a combination of all of them did that kept them in a different pocket of time, or something. Harry decided to go with the 'or something option'.

Then another wizard apparated beside where Ludo Bagman was sitting on the grass, he was an elderly wizard, stiff and upright, he had it seemed followed the 'dress like a muggle' directions. He was in a stiff suit that seemed to match his personality. Harry looked up to his eyes, this 'Barty Crouch' as Ludo Bagman wasn't as stiff as his appearance led all to believe, there was an odd fire within his eyes, he held himself stiffly but there was a deliberate form to his actions.

He probably wasn't a bundle of laughs he thought smirking to himself.

Harry refocused his attention back to the present as Percy oddly bowed into his field of vision.

"Mr Crouch! Would you like a cup of tea?" Harry wondered if Percy had leaned any further down he could have licked Crouch's shoes without too much effort.

"Oh…" He gave Percy the smallest of looks, seemingly recognising him for the first time. "Yes, thank you Whetherby."

Harry raised an eyebrow, his smirk forming up into a smile, he could hear the twins choking on their own cups of tea.

Harry paid polite attention to the following discussion of carpets, something he'd never really considered, when the Doctor had mentioned Hyspero where all manner of things _used_ to be possible, but he hadn't really imagined it happening here on Earth in the magic world. Obviously there were brooms, which were present in literature and as a common theme in magic, so why not carpets, something he decided he needed to have a chat to Hermione about. Harry pondered to himself; which came first the idea that carpets flew in fiction, or that a household item, like the broom could be _made_ to fly. If it followed Mr Weasley's Ford Anglia example then the carpets were of conventional use first then in magic service, but the car was already transport…

Hermione nudged him.

"You're muttering to yourself." She whispered.

"I am?

Bagman was talking again, waving his hands around and almost walking into the fire. "Oh details! They've signed, haven't they? They've agreed haven't they? I bet these kids'll know soon enough anyway. I mean it's happening at Hogwarts –" He was cut off by Crouch, and just as things were getting interesting.

"Ludo, we need to meet the Bulgarians." He pushed the still full cup of tea into Percy's hands. "Thank you for the tea Whetherby."

With a farewell Bagman and Crouch disapparated (though there was no farewell from Crouch to them), Harry blinked a few times, it wasn't like any matter transmission that the Doctor or the Magister had ever described, nor was it like when the TARDIS dematerialised, the people were there and then – they weren't.

"What's happening at Hogwarts Dad?" Said Fred at once. "What were they talking about?"

"You'll find out soon enough." Said Mr Weasley, smiling.

"It's classified information, until such time that the Ministry decides to release it."  
"Oh shut up Wheatherby." Said Fred.

Harry looked over at Mr Weasley, in theory he could probably find out from him what the special secret was, despite not seeing Magister in over a year he had still been practicing, going back over the Art of War book he had given him a couple of years ago, it held far more than just Sun Tzu's words.

Though there was something to be said for waiting for the surprise to come, and the moral waters may become murky somewhat should he start hypnotising his friend's father for information, better to save that for his enemies…

Hermione nudged him again and found he was standing relatively alone staring into the fire.

"Honestly Harry sometimes you act like your mind's away on Mars or something."

"Or a little side step here and there, perhaps even further." He murmered to himself.

"Harry?" Harry looked over at Hermione.

"Yes Hermione?" He asked stuffing his hands in his pockets, despite the cool of the slowly upcoming afternoon the heat of the fire was still a little hot, his jacket proved excellent respite.

"What were you saying before?"

"Before when?"

"When you were muttering to yourself…" She trailed off, studying his jacket closer. "What's this logo on here…" She muttered to herself.

"Now you're doing it." He said with a smile. Hermione snapped her eyes up to look at him.

"I was just thinking before, where do you think the idea of flying carpets came from?"

"What do you mean Harry?"

"Well…" He started to outline how he had been thinking, Hermione's face brightening into understanding and a smile.

"I hadn't really thought about it like that, there's hardly anything in the history books relating to _Muggles_."

"And you didn't find out anything during your _escapades_ last year."

"That was genuine study Harry!" She huffed.

"Mucking around with the fourth dimension for the sake of extra study. Doesn't that seem just a little bit insane? You said there were consequences, but if you really think about it's utter madness." Harry sat down into one of the chairs near the fire, Hermione dropping into one opposite him.

"Honestly Harry, I didn't really think about." She said in a moment of calm honesty and then regarded him. "Though you seem to have." Harry shrugged.

"I had some time to think about it after the end of school, I did some reading and talked…to some people about it."

"Talked?!" She said with a slightly worried tone. "Harry the Statute of"

Harry cut her off. "I mean about time travel theory." And the web of time and prophecies and whatever else Harry thought to himself.

"Oh. Well it's alright this year I'm not using anything like that. I heard that you've dropped Divination." She said with some satisfaction. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Harry shrugged. "I didn't receive confirmation until after I got back to the Dursleys…and I didn't want to upset Ron more considering our activities in the recent past."

Hermione nodded and then looked at him. "Why?"

"Why?" He repeated, much to her annoyance.

"Why did you change from Divination to Ancient Runes." She asked with a sigh and then added almost as an afterthought. "If you don't mind me asking."

"I was already thinking about it at the start of last year." He began Hermione looked shocked.

"Then why did you…" Harry shrugged.

"Then after our time travelling escapades it made me really think about all this stuff, I don't want to go searching for my future in wisps and vapours, I'm going to prepare for the future and one of the best tools is knowledge, not grounded in mysticism and vagueness." Hermione looked at him impressed.

"You're going to have lots of work to catch up on, a whole year Harry!"

He nodded. "I've already got the list of study material and I ordered the books, I've already made my way through a lot of it, I'll have a bit of study by the Professor said that I should be able to catch up as I am so determined," He paused. "and since I've got such a good friend who will tutor me to get me close to her brilliant standard." Harry said with a grin.

"Flattery Harry?"

"Simply the truth Hermione." He said with a smile.

"So what else have you been doing reading on over the holidays, aside from time travel and Ancient Runes?" Hermione started with a curious tone.

Soon it turned into dusk and Ron came out of the tent having done whatever he had been doing while he and Hermione had been chatting about the origins of flying carpets and if Salazar Slytherin was the reason parsel-tongues were feared or whether it was the general dislike within the wizarding world of snakes and their duality within the muggle world. Hermione had been impressed with his research on that particular subject.

Harry could feel it more people had started to come out of their tents, the palpable excitement began to form over the vast campsites, it seemed by this point that the accumulated witches and wizards had pretty much stopped even pretending they were not meant to be using magic.

Then the amount of apparititions increased dramatically, Harry felt like the atmospheric pressure was being changed in their local environment by the amounts of 'pops' that were occurring, and bringing with them all manner of people. All of which seemed to be selling something.

"Been my pocket money all summer for this." Ron said as they left their camp site and started to move around the horde of salesmen.

Ron must have really been hoping his dad would be able to get tickets, as his letter said that they'd only got the tickets with less than a week to spare, Harry thought to himself and wondered if he should voice his questions. He decided not, Ron already thought he was being 'weird' because he'd spent the afternoon chatting with Hermione instead of talking about the coming game this night.

Harry didn't like Lucius Malfoy, though he barely looked at him, but saw the look that Hermione seemed to rebuff though blushing slightly out the corner of his eye. He was instead fixing Draco Malfoy with a stare, over the past few years he'd really begun hate him. Malfoy stared back at him, almost unable to look away, Harry smirked at Draco, and as he and his father turned to leave Draco tripped up the stairs.

Harry chuckled in a deep tone to himself earning an odd look from Hermione.

--//

The game had been amazing, unbelievable, it had been a rush watching it, watching those players weave and dive in manoeuvres he could only dream of.

Harry thought back reliving it in his mind's eye as he laid back on the top bunk watching the shifts in light of leprechaun fireworks that were still dancing across the canvass roof of the tent, Ron's snores were the only thing that punctuated the background noise of people still partying.

Harry hadn't even started to get ready for bed, he'd taken his boots off, but aside from that he sat, fully clothed, thinking back over the day's events, his meeting with the Doctor amongst them.

It very worrying seeing the Doctor so…so down, he was used to the Doctor having a wildly varying personality, but this Doctor was so dejected, almost disconnected from the universe now that he began to think about it. He still was bright, funny, cheerful, but it had many times seemed forced, he still had that playfulness and a genuine care in his eyes, he'd known that about the Doctor ever since he was and old, well young man, depending on how you looked at him. He also had a real affection for his companions, which was good and they seemed the same about him, not that he'd met anyone who didn't enjoy travelling with the Doctor (though admittedly he did 'kidnap' a few people on occasion).

As the noise of the night began to settle down Harry started to seriously think about going to sleep, though Ron's snores were…his track of thought ended when the screams and shouts from outside ramped up several levels. Harry jumped off the bed quickly tying his boots on.

"Get up Ron – Harry – come on now, get up, this is urgent." Mr Weasley's voice shouted through the canvass of the tent.

Mr Weasley came in hastily pulling on a set of jeans over his pyjamas.

"What's going on Dad?"

"No time Ron, just grab a jacket and get outside quickly." He said blinking as he took in Harry's appearance.

Outside, by the lights of the few fires that were still burning illuminating the tents, there were many people running, fleeing into the woods, fleeing from something that was moving through the field of tents.

The something that was moving through the tents were groups of wizards, Harry squinted, shielding his eyes against the flashes in the light attempting to preserve some of his dark adaptation, he couldn't see any of their faces, they were were hidden behind some form of mis-shapen mask, almost like a skull. They reminded him of something, but he couldn't recall what.

More wizards (at least he assumed they were wizards, it was hard to determined what gender they were in the long dark cloaks) were joining the group, many of them blasting tents out of the way with slash and swipes of their wands. A chill passed down Harry's spine, what if they had been inside one of those tents and not got out of there in time?

His answer came in the long anguished screams that followed as one of the wizards made another tent explode, he was sure he saw a figure collapsing within the ball of flame, flailing. Harry turned to see if Ron had seen what he thought he'd see, but Ron was looking upwards.

Above the oncoming marching crowd were at least four people, floating, and screaming, their screams punctuated the night, even more so than the explosions and other noises of the crowd, they punched down, he dimly wondered if one of the marching wizards had put a sonorus on them just to make a bad situation all that more nightmare inducing. Out of the four people he could see only one did he recognise the figure of, Mr Roberts, the campsite manager. There were three others which appeared to be his wife and children.

Then, as the crowd cheered and hooted they started to rotate like a spinning top.

"That's sick…that is really sick." Ron muttered beside him. Harry could only concur.

Just then Hermione and Ginny came out of their tents both pulling on coats, and in Hermione's a coat over the top of her jeans and an oversized tshirt. She looked at him giving him a curious look, he returned it with his own, to which she shrugged.

Less than a second later Bill, Charlie and Percy ran over to them – all fully dressed.

"We're going to help the Ministry" He shouted over all the noise and commotion. "You lot – get into the woods, and _stick together_. I'll come and fetch you when we've sorted this out."

Harry couldn't shake the feeling that the words 'we're going to help' and 'get into the woods' shouldn't have been said together considering the crisis, the Doctor and his friends had they were phrases always said, and they almost never seemed to end well, still going on their averages, he'd most likely come out of this experience _alive_, as long as he didn't use the Doctor's rule of averages.

Fred grabbed Ginny's hand and led them into the woods, George taking up the rear.

The coloured lanterns that had previously adorned the paths in and out of the woods were now well and truly extinguished (or destroyed judging by the blackened marks they saw here and there).

The Harry turned around sharply as he heard Ron yell in pain.

"Ron where are you? Oh this is stupid – _Lumos!_" Hermione illuminated the tip of her wand pointing it down to where Ron was sprawled on the ground.

"Tripped over a tree-root." He said angrily accepting Harry's hand up from the ground.

"Well, with feet that size, hard not to." Said a drawling voice behind them.

Harry Rona dn Hermione turned sharply to see Draco Malfoy leaning casually against a tree, looking utterly relaxed. Arms folded he seemed to have been observing the whole event through a gap in the trees.

Ron told him to do something that was probably physically impossible,

"Language, Weasley." Said Malfoy, his pale eyes glittering in the pale night. "Hadn't you better be hurrying along now? You wouldn't want _her_ spotted, would you?" He nodded to Hermione, at the same moment something large exploded at the campsite sending a rush of hot air through the forest.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione asked defiantly.

"They're after muggles, or muggle borns." Harry said in a low tone of realisation.

"Very good Potter, we'll make a _proper wizard _out of you soon. You" He looked at Hermione "better not hang around, they're moving this way, and it would give us all a laugh to see you hanging upside down with your knickers in the air." Harry wondered if he'd rehearsed that, as Hermione was wearing jeans. "Off you go with your mudblood now." He waved them off.

"Hermione's a witch!" Ron snarled.

"Never mind Ron." Hermione grabbed Ron's arm as he tried to advance on Malfoy.

There was another bang and the air around them heated up again, there was a horrible smell that accompanied it this time, one of burning fabric and meat, Harry tried not to think about the latter and just hoped someone had been cooking a large meal, but this delusion didn't even convince him in his own mind.

"'Scare easily, don't they?" Malfoy asked them looking back to the campsite. "I suppose daddy told you all to hide? What's he up to – trying to rescue help the pathetic ministry drones?"

"Where are _your _parents Malfoy" Ron asked.

Harry added. "Out there wearing masks, are they?"

Malfoy turned around smiling at Harry. "Well...if they were, I wouldn't be likely to tell you, would I Potter."

"I suppose not." Harry said, smiling a predatory smile at him, which seemed to throw Malfoy for a moment.

"Oh, come on, let's go find the others." She said, but Harry was moving to close the distance between him and Malfoy.

"You would be likely to tell me, you will tell me, you will tell me, you will tell me, you will tell me. Harry said in a quick, low undertone, using his body to block any view of his friends while fixing Draco with a hard stare as he continued to repeat Malfoy's own phrase to him until he was repeating it back to him.

Harry expression curled into a smirk.

"Where is 'father'?"

"Father wouldn't tell me, doesn't tell me anything, sent me home, father…." He said in a slow monotone voice.

Harry nodded quickly to himself, snapping his fingers in front of Malfoy who blinked.

"Potter, what are you doing?" He said pushing himself away from Harry.

"Nothing at all." Harry said. "Come on we'd better find the others." He said to Hermione.

"I'll bet you anything his dad is one of that masked lot."

"Probably, Malfoy certainly didn't know."

As they encountered a group of French students Harry was frantically searching his pockets, he'd had his wand in one of the very shallow outer pockets while he'd been using it and now it was gone. His heart beat slightly faster and he felt around deeper into his pocket and felt the reassuring weight of the forcefield generator the Doctor had imparted to him.

"Oh shit, I've lost my wand." He said to Hermione and Ron.

"You're kidding?" Harry felt like saying he was, but he wasn't.

They both offered explanations of where it could be, but Harry wasn't sure, he still had a slight 'buzz' after hypnotizing Draco, he wondered briefly if it was a buzz of power, or just slight exhaustion.

A noise in the bushes made them jump as they continued to look around for Fred, George and Ginny.

"There is bad wizards about!" The small house-elf squeaked "People high in the air! Winky is getting out of the way!" She squeaked, running awkwardly into the forest.

"What's up with her?" Ron asked. "Why can't she run properly?"

"Bet she didn't ask permission to hide." Said Harry, thinking back to the way Dobby behaved.

They followed the path deeper into the woods, Harry for the most part only half listening to Ron and Hermione's argument of house-elves.

Then suddenly after passing several people from goblins to Stan Shunpike they were in an eerily quiet part of the woods. Then as they were walking around Ludo Bagman emerged from behind a tree, but a great change had come over him, he was no longer rosy faced and boyant. He was stony white and strained.

"What are you doing in here, all alone."

"There's a riot going on out there." Harry jabbed a thumb backwards.

"What?" Bagman stared at them.

"Out in the campsite, Muggles being floated about." Hermione said with a disgusted tone in her voice.

"Damn them!" He said, swearing and then disappearing with a _pop_.

"Not exactly on top of things." Hermione said, frowning.

Then once more they were left in silence, Ron collapsed onto the ground, removing his miniature Krum figurine from his pocket as they began to idly chat about the possible capture of Lucius Malfoy and…

Harry whipped around, he, and he noticed Hermione had heard a noise in the woods.

He was sure he could hear a noise of footsteps, but there was nothing.

"Hello?" Called Hermione.

There was silence. Harry looked around again, he was sure there was someone around, just outside his field of vision.

Then without warning someone, their mysterious figure shouted a spell, their voice was calm, totally unlike everyone they'd thus encountered.

"_MOSMORDRE!_"

Something vast, green and glittering erupted from the darkness and flew up into the sky. For a split second Harry hoped it was something friendly. Though not even the spell had even suggested to him that. It was a colossal skull, composed of what appeared to be stars, with a serpent slithering out of the mouth like a tongue as they watched it rose higher and higher blazing with green smoke seemingly burning against the sky like a new nightmarish constellation. Harry knew with a dull realisation what it was, for a moment there he'd been caught up in amazement in seeing it.

"Oh fu—"

"Harry we have to go!" Hermione said as she grabbed Ron up from the ground.

"That's the Dark Mark." He said. "Come on Ron." But too late he saw they were surrounded by wizards, from the blazing Dark Mark above them and the weirdly permeating darkness around them he couldn't see their faces, they were all obscured by the darkness and the glare simultaneously and they all had their wands drawn. Harry stuffed his hand into his pocket and clasped the forcefield generator.

"Down!" He shouted depressing the button. It hummed and shook in his hands as an blue decagon cone-shape enveloped them as several 'Stupefy' spells, and a few others that Harry didn't hear shot towards them, Harry risked looking up as the spells thundered towards them, ricocheting away from them in slightly opposite directions, mostly seemingly due to the forcefield's shape.

"Stop!" Yelled a voice. "Stop that's my son!"

Mr Weasley came running towards them looking terrified. Harry and the others stood, Harry grabbed Ron's hand from touching the forcefield, shaking his head. Ron opened his mouth but Harry raised a finger to his own and pushed the button on the forcefield, the dim light around them snapped off.

"Out of the way, Arthur." It was Mr Crouch. "Which of you did it?"

"We didn't do anything!" Ron was looking between his father, Crouch and Harry.

"Where did the mark come from you three?" Mr Weasley asked quickly.

Hermione told him as Crouch began to interrogate Hermione.

Harry internally sighed and resigned himself to using his 'fame', and having a monster headache at the end of this night.

"Listen, listen to me all of you." Harry said in steady, though permiating voice. Everyone turned to look at him. Harry was just preparing himself to look into everyone's eyes and grab their attention when a voice broke the moment and everyone's eyes defocused for a second.

Harry sighed, audibly to himself as Amos Diggory said rushing from behind the group, someone whom Harry hadn't seen, or hadn't been drawn by his voice.

"Our stunners were _repelled_ into those trees." He glanced at Harry Ron and Hermione.

"Accidental magic!" Hermione said in a raised hysterical voice, everyone seemed to nod before following Diggory.

Harry watched as out of his wand oozed a ghostly image of the Dark Mark, there was a sick sort of symmetry his wand, being used to cast Voldemort's mark. Cast by what everyone around seemed to want to believe had been a house-elf.

Despite everyone, the recriminations and arguing and everything, Harry had to on some level admire Hermione's bloody mindedness when it came to the plight of the house elves as they walked back to the tent. His wand now deep within his pockets, Harry deciding that's where he was going to keep it if he ever went to a sporting game where a magical riot lead by magical racists was to break out.

When they finally got back to the tent Ron asked a question that seemed to grab everyone's attentions.

"Look, can someone just explain what the skull thing was? It wasn't hurting anyone…why's it such a big deal?"

"It's Voldemort's" Everyone except Hermione shivered at Harry's use of the name. "And it hasn't been seen in the sky like that for thirteen years." Harry said, the realisation just dawning on him as he spoke the information.

"Too many people it's like seeing You-Know-Who back again." Mr Weasley said quietly.

"I still don't get it, it's just a symbol in the sky."

"Just as the symbol for Gryffindor is just a symbol on our robes?" Harry asked Ron curiously.

"You-Know-Who would send that mark into the air whenever they killed. The terror inspired with its appearance…you have no idea." His voice was cracking now.

Harry let the information cascade over him, he'd read some of it, now he knew why the masked wizards were familiar. That was what happened when you read too many books about too many subjects, everything became blurred.

--//

Later in the week, after they'd all returned Harry found himself under a tree, watching Ron and his brothers popping up over the trees every so often as they played Quidditch, he'd passed on it, he'd wanted to catch up on a little bit of reading. The leather bound hand written copy of _The Art of War_ sat in his lap as Hermione sat down opposite him.

"What were you reading?" Hermione asked as Harry was placing the book in an internal jacket pocket.

"_The Art of War_, Sun Tzu." But that's not what you wanted to ask. He thought to himself.

"Harry what was going on at the World Cup?"

"Aside from the muggle torture you mean?" He asked. Hermione stared at him.

"You know what I mean."

"Enlighten me?" He asked innocently, plucking a flower from the grass.

"Where should I begin, what did you do to Malfoy, what was that thing in your jacket, what were you trying to do to the crowd and how did you know so much about the Dark Mark?" She counted the points off on her hand.

Harry nodded and wondered which of them he could answer easily.

"I read about the Dark Mark and Voldemort and other things, a couple of years ago and again last year, while finding out about Sirius, before we met, obviously."

"Obviously." Hermione repeated. "Well?"

"What if I said no."

"I did cover for you." She said, grabbing the flower he had been playing with out of his hands and throwing it over her shoulder.

"Is a lie that is easier to understand better the truth which is harder to accept?" He asked curiously.

"I…I want to know what it was."

"It was…it was a gift from a friend of mine."

"The same friend who gave you that crystal you used last year?" She fixed him with a look.

"Yes, sort of. I met him when I went to get water."

"You weren't gone long enough for…" Harry cut her off.

"You should know more than anyone that time is malleable." He looked at her mysteriously.

"And you were having a go at _me_ for using a time turner!"

"I didn't say _I _used one. I just posited the possibly of temporal manipulation."

Hermione sighed. "Fine, what about Malfoy?"

"I asked him nicely." After a fashion. "He just told me that he didn't know anything, his father hadn't told him anything."

"And what about when Crouch and the others were all around us?"

"Using my fame to get us out of a tricky situation." Harry said with a shrug.

Hermione stared at him.

"Are you ever going to tell me the whole story?"

The "whole" story was decidedly more complicated Harry reflected, and would probably get far more complicated as the year continued on, if last year was any indication.

--//

Harry was glad that Hermione was there to talk to him, even if she basically told him an idiot, for not seeing something he should have seen.

But Ron had been there through some of the bad times, and the moderately good times, and the bad times.

But Ron was still being remarkably childish considering Harry's past experiences, admittedly he didn't want to become as paranoid as Moody, but given that every year since they'd been at Hogwarts something absolutely crap had occurred why couldn't this be the kick off the cliff. Admittedly last year was better than the previous two, there's been no Voledmort as such, just his servant, but in the process of a year he'd found his godfather, only to have him leave by necessity and a good friend and teacher only to have him leave by necessity as well.

Considering Ron also knew his past, his history he was the one he told everything to, it felt more than a little like a stab, nay an axe in the back for Ron to so quickly turn his back on him.

--//

Harry disliked Rita Skeeter as soon as Bagman introduced him to her.

"I wonder if I could have a little word with Harry before we start?" Harry met her gaze evenly, though keeping a shroud half glance on Bagman. "The youngest champion, you know…to add a bit of colour."

"Certainly!" Cried Bagman. "That is – if Harry has no objection." Harry was already moving as Rita moved to touch his arm. He positioned himself on the other side of Bagman, a manoeuvre born from primary school and hiding from Dudley's 'friends'.

"I do, thank you. But no." Bagman turned looking at him eyes wide. Harry vaguely recalled the Doctor telling him this was the way to deal with bureaucrats, that or bamboozle them with information. Short and unarguable was easier he thought.

"I'm sure we can have a few words Harry." She started again.

"I'm sure the others are _much_ more _worthy _of your attentions, thank you Miss Skeeter." Harry said looking around the small room, there really wasn't anywhere to go, it was either approach Krum who was it seemed trying to ignore everyone. Strike up a conversation with Fleur and Cedric, which considering his position with Cedric that probably wasn't best, or the weird guy with the camera who kept looking up and down Fleur's body with one eye.

Needs must, Harry thought to himself as he backed away from Rita.

"Hello there!" Harry said in what he thought sounded very fake cheery voice, taking the man's hand and shaking it. "How are you today…?" The man seemed bamboozled by Harry's sudden attention.

--//

If Harry had thought _not_ speaking to Skeeter had been a good thing he'd been sorely mistaken.

She'd just made it up anyway, saying that he was too full of himself to speak to such an esteemed journalist such as her.

At the next Hogsmeade weekend he'd wanted to go with Hermione, but she said he was being silly, wanting to go under his invisibility cloak. Plus her having to talk to what would appear to everyone else be talking to herself.

He was still determined to go, even without Hermione. There was something liberating walking around alone. Once in the village he decided to remove the cloak, rather than walk around and wait for people to open doors, plus he wouldn't be able to have a drink or buy anything, he felt that he should be able to use this new found freedom, considering in the previous year he hadn't been able to.

Ducking down an alley way he was stuffing it into one of his impossibly large pockets when he heard someone walking down the alley towards him.

Harry turned around slowly his wand in his hand. "A fascinating piece of clothing Mr Potter. I've been hearing some most interesting, untrue as they are things about you." He chuckled.

Harry smiled as he came face to face with a friend he hadn't seen in over a year.

"Magister, it's fantastic to see you." Harry said, shrugging his shoulders slightly in relief. Magister frowned slightly.

"Harry?" He looked down at him placing a hand on his shoulder. "Come on Mr Potter, there is a rather quiet establishment not frequented by your classmates on the edge of the particularly _English_ town."

"Your issue is concentration and determination. You must be prepared to usurp those that you wish to bend to your will and do not reach too far. The crowd that you described, you may have been able to convince for the short term, but any longer and they probably would not have believed anything you said."

"Hermione keeps asking me complicated questions about how I hypnotized Malfoy…and other stuff, with the Doctor."

"The Doctor is a particularly frustrating person young Harry."

Harry decided to change the subject. "So I didn't see you last year, I was" he paused taking a sip of the darkly coloured tea "worried something had happened to you."

Magister's eyes lit up with humour. "Your worry is touching Harry, very touching, there are not many who would worry about my status."

"So…?"

"The Doctor visited you prior and following your schooling. Unlike a good wine, for which his early incarnation enjoyed he does not it seems mellow with age, especially with regards the Doctor's and my interactions. As for your schooling I had hoped to 'drop in' as it were. But there was a rather interesting temporal distortion around Hogwarts."

"Oh, yeah…"

"Fascinating Mr Potter, fascinating." He chuckled, at both the casual use of time travel and Harry's use to alter the past, whatever the Doctor would say, it showed true power and control to decide to alter events like that, and to destroy so many dangerous creatures in the process.

Harry returned to the castle feeling better for his meeting with the Magister, though it seemed that he had recently met the Doctor in slightly more unfortunate circumstances than that of their previous encounters that had particularly annoyed the Magister, but he hadn't enlightened further only saying 'not to trust the rust bucket pepper pots' ever again.

--//

Hermione was going through the various spells and whatever he could use against a dragon, Harry's mind though elsewhere, after his chat with Sirius and his 'encounter' with Ron he was quietly thinking about half a dozen things, all with varying levels of important-ness.

He could really use the Magister's impressive shrinking weapon he had often extolled the brilliance of.

But sadly not, but…

"He knew this was coming." Harry said to himself as he remembered the Doctor's gift when he and Charley had visited.

"What was that Harry?"

"Fire transporters of Hyspero."

"The fire what's of what?" Hermione stared at him as Viktor Krum came into the library.

--//

Harry waited and then stood up waiting for the whistle, he pulled the hood that had been attached to the 'impervious to fire' vest the Doctor had given him over his head, tying the whatever it was made out of straps under his chin tightly and checked his Quidditch gloves that would at least protect his hands, he'd asked Hermione to help him with fire repellent charms to add to them early this morning. He'd thought about using his longer

She hadn't asked him about his brown leather like trousers and vest, only studying them for a few moments, running her hands along the material and frowning, murmuring to herself something unintelligible.

Then the whistle blew and he took a few calming breaths and stepped out of the tent.

"_If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest."_ Harry said to himself, mentally preparing himself for the summoning charm, all the noise around him droned into cacophony of nothing, a noise, then he shouted, clear and certain, like a sword striking down against a stone, a weapon drawn, not for fighting, he cried two words that would save him and let him survive another day, he hoped. "Accio Firebolt!"

For a few moments, those two words ringing in his ears he felt silence, there was still noise, there was still the Hungarian Horntail before him, but he was clear in his objective, nothing would stand in his way. He felt the buzz of calm controlled power, _his_ power. This is what Magister had said, being in _true_ control you could do as you liked, do anything, to anyone. All it took was the right mindset, that and a dragon staring down at him, the reality of which came crashing down upon him as his broom slammed into his hands and before he knew it he was flying.

Up higher and higher, just like a Quidditch match, only with fire, and a dragon.

As he circled higher and higher the dragon continued to follow billowing plumed of fire in his directions, every so soften he felt the air sizzle, unpleasantly reminding him of the night of the World Cup.

Then he plummeted back down towards the dragon, swerving (only just) missing the a gust of the dragon's deadly breath. But as he was re-manoeuvring around the its tail came around, Harry grit his teeth and dared not look down at the mess of his shoulder judging by the constant stream of blood that he could feel dripping down his arm. It had nothing on the pain of the Basilisk fang and the various other injuries he'd incurred on that particular 'adventure'.

The dragon however was not taking the bait – him. It looked like it wanted to take off, but he didn't seem to be a big enough threat, and considering the size difference between them, he could understand why.

He took off again, circling around, the dragon breathing fire and snapping in the air, in a part of his mind that wasn't concentrating on flying and not being fried he wondered if it was the blood which had slowed to a globby trickle rather than a river from his torn and mashed up shoulder.

_Speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions._

Harry stared at the dragon it was still coveting its eggs, as though it had seen what the others had done and was determined to keep its eggs away from him.

Harry decided he need to do something insane.

His and Hermione's researches didn't really find any real weaknesses, but as Harry lined himself up, the old rule 'if you're bitten by a shark, poke it in the eye' would hopefully hold true. He had to get the dragon to move a safe distance, and he had to annoy it enough to fly after him, and there were plenty of unexpected routes around Hogwarts to take the dragon through, if he didn't get fired first.

The collective crowd drew in a collected breath as Harry Potter the Fourth Champion flew straight for the dragon's mouth in a seemingly suicidal frontal attack, except he slowed almost to a stop, leaning out as the dragon was momentarily stunned at its prey flying _toward it_ and kicked the dragon in the eye.

The collected silence was then punctuated by Harry James Potter flying away as fast as his Firebolt would take him and a moment later the dragon roaring and breaking its bonds and taking to the skies after him.

Harry's heart was beating fast, as he risked a look behind him and then wished he hadn't, it was like a wall of flame barreling towards him. He grabbed the broom pulling it almost vertical in an attempt to escape, but the fireball enveloped him, he gritted his teeth again as he continued to fly upwards, the heat sizzling along his wound. Supremely thankful of the multitude of charms on his broom, which seemingly prevented it from burning along with his arms and shoulders.

They were going to hurt when the adrenaline wore off.

Harry pushed the broom back down and he felt his ears pop as the smoke around him cleared and the castle, very quickly came rushing back into view.

Now he wasn't thinking, he wasn't planning he was just reacting to the sound behind him and the turrets of the castle that came rushing towards him, he was dimly aware of the dragon smashing into things as he turned sharply heading towards Hogsmeade and then looping background towards Hogwarts, a plan forming in his mind, if he couldn't defeat the dragon he'd have to trap it.

He heard some saw the glow around him and then heard the roar before what hair was poking out from under the hood caught on fire again and he was bathed in a slightly smaller ball of fire.

It hurt supremely more the second time; the fireball against the burnt flesh than the first time.

Harry pushed his broom harder down towards the lake, just past Hogsmeade station, water spray spraying up as he skimmed the water looking for the hidden entrance with the ivy.

If he was wrong, at the speeds he was doing he would likely splatter into the cliff wall.

Gingerly he grabbed for his wand, secreted in a pocket, again if he didn't have this ready he he'd still probably go splat.

The dragon roared behind him as he hit the ivy, it battering against his face like a whip and he flew up the (much smaller than he remembered) cave he and all his friends had entered Hogwarts through all those years ago. He looked back as he blasted the doors open the dragon had followed him in and was now thrashing around in the too small for its bulk cave.

Harry flew out, blasting through the second set of doors and past a _very_ annoyed Filch, pushing his broom as fast as he could go, back to the arena.

The crowd was still there _and _there several dragon keepers circling on brooms, Harry quickly swooped down, plucking the egg from where it sat unguarded. Then it was as though the crowd's volume had turned back up as he circled the arena before touching back down.

As he landed he saw Professor McGonagall, Moody and Hagrid rushing towards him.

He didn't quite remember the next events that followed but he did remember McGonagall taking his hand gently leading him towards the first aid tent and Madam Pomfrey shrieking when she saw him, or quite possibly something about dementors.

He did remember the stabbing pain just prior to her taking some sort of action and smearing something on his arms, dulling the pain considerably.

He sagged into the chair, the last of the adrenaline that had been keeping him moving, thinking and more to the point _alive_ was starting to ebb away, leaving only pain and a clawing memory of burnt flesh, again bringing back a memory of a figure screaming in agony at the World Cup.

Harry blinked, he was sure he could see stars, or screams, then Hermione and _Ron_ came rushing in, Madame Pomfrey stood in their path.

Harry tried to speak, but found he couldn't and coughed instead.

"You've inhaled smoke from your burns and the heat will have dried up your mouth a lot Mr Potter, drink this." She offered him a glass, he eyed it and looked at her. "It's _just_ water Mr Potter, you're in no state for potions."

"That's a relief." He wheezed with a cough and motioned his friend and _Ron_ over, wincing as he did so.

"Merlin Harry, you were amazing, and insane, that was a completely irresponsible thing to do!" She shouted, though seemed to be crying also.

"What was I supposed to do Hermione, it took a chunk" Harry reached up to his shoulder, there was a spongy substance surrounded by the paste Pomfrey had put on his arm. "out of my arm. I had to think laterally."

Then Harry turned his attention to Ron, who was looking very pale. "Harry whoever put your name in that Goblet – I – I reckon they're trying to do you i!"

"Caught on have you? Took you long enough." He said coldly, so much so Ron took a step and a half away, Hermione was also looking at him with a worried expression.

Hermione looked between them nervously, Harry looked at Ron, knowing what he'd do next, Harry wondered if would mean it.

"I should have believed you, I'm sor…" But Harry cut him off.

"Yes, you should have, how many things have we been through Ron, you, me and Hermione." He looked Hermione. "Perhaps next time you won't stab me in the back quite so hard." He said, a bitter taste coming to his mouth.

"Harry I…"

"Forget it." Harry said curtly.

"Come on Harry, they'll be putting up the scores." Ron said jovially. Harry made to stand up and then lurched sideways as he put pressure on his leg, he was caught by Ron and Hermione.

"What are you doing standing up Mr Potter?"

"Why does my leg hurt?"

"No doubt because it was broken, and I've only just repaired it." She said tutting.

Odd, Harry thought, he hadn't felt any breakages, though he admitted he had other things on his mind.

"Hermione pass me my broom and the egg." He asked gritting his teeth and looking at Madam Pomfrey. "I'll just check to scores, then right back." He said around his gritted teeth. She stared at him as he turned his broom upside down, putting the brush end in the air and tested his weight on it.

He followed Ron and Hermione out as they both began to tell him what had happened, while he had been awaiting his turn.

Krum lost points because the dragon had squashed some of its eggs.

Harry wondered how much he'd loose for all the damage his dragon had caused.

He was amazed at the score, gob smacked actually. He was now in the lead, with Krum.

Harry returned the tent just after receiving the scores as he had promised Madame Pomfrey, as soon as he walked in she pushed a cup of something into his free hand, his egg he'd stuffed into a spare pocket, though he continued to lean on his upturned broom for support as he swallowed the foaming concoction.

Then Krum, Fleur and Cedric came in, the side of Cedric's face and all the way down to his shoulder was covered in an orange paste, his shirt it seemed had been burnt away.

"Good one Harry." He coughed as he spoke.

"And you." Harry wheezed with a smile.

"Well done, all of you!" Ludo Bagman bounced back into the tent.

Harry listened attentively as Bagman spoke, he and Cedric both accepting potions Madame Pomfrey continued to give them. Then as he finished and Fleur and Krum left he dropped into the chair, while Cedric went off to the other side of the tent to speak with his friends.

"What's the prognosis doc?"

"Doc?" She stared at him.

"Nothing." He smiled at her as she waved a wand over his leg.

"You will keep pressure off it, but keep moving it around."

"Can I walk back up to the castle?" She stared at him unbelievingly for a moment.

"If you can move through the pain Mr Potter. Then straight to bed."

"Yes Ma'am." Harry grinned. Leaning again on his wand. Outside the tent Hermione and Ron were waiting and the most unpleasant sight he thought he'd ever have to face. Rita Skeeta.

"Harry Potter, I wonder if I could have a quick word?"

Harry thought of several words for her, though most involved him wishing her to be minced up and fed to a hippogriff.

"No. Goodbye." He said coldly turning sharply away from her, realising as he did he wrenched his shoulder in the process, but decided to continue at a steady pace, just so he didn't show any weakness to her.

--//

As Christmas approached Harry began to think he _really _needed to find a partner to the ball. Not that he'd had a lack of girls asking him, but they were all…a little bit, he mentally tried to think of the words. 'Insipid and pouting' He thought with a smile.

"Where have I heard that before?" He murmured to himself, mentally cursing himself for talking aloud, to himself. Then he recalled, it was a description the Magister had used to describe one of Nero's concubines that had tried to seduce him.

Harry twirled the rose he'd managed to transfigure in the privacy of an empty classroom.

There were only two girls that he believed he had a chance of asking to the dance. Both were in his and Hermione's Ancient Runes class.

One of them would if he asked her out would be for some part following the Doctor's ideology of 'suprising the enemy', the second other was more about playing to someone sympathetic, though ultimately she seemed uninterested by the whole thing, though she had been civil enough throughout the whole 'Fourth Champion' thing.

Surprising the enemy seemed a little too controversial, though he would have liked to see what would have happened if he had asked Daphne Greengrass to the Yule Ball. Malfoy might have exploded, probably along with Ron, Hermione and the rest of Gryffindor and there was a part of him that found the idea most amusing.

Maybe he'd been hit a little too hard in the head during his fights with the dragon, but something made him turn away from the library where many of the Ravenclaw girls were studying and back towards a flight of stairs where he knew Daphne Greengrass sat with several of the Slytherin girls during the day.

'Here we go, snakes den…' Harry thought to himself, a deep chuckle echoing down the corridor as he walked down it.

Harry crept up the stairs, only to have three leg-locker spells and a beige spell come towards him forcing him to duck and weave as he made his way up the stairs.

"Potter!" Harry began to think this really was an insane idea, though that said what he'd done with the dragon hadn't been too bad, he just needed to make sure he didn't get fried alive.

Though what he was facing was far worse than a dragon.

Harry tilted his head in a greeting. "Ms Parkinson."

"What do you want Potter, more photos and praise?" Harry said nothing, Parkinson's insults were even worse than Malfoy's.

"Merely a word with your fellow student, concerning matters of school and the peculiarities of life." He said with a smile, twirling the rose behind his back.

"Who?"

"Ms Greengrass."

"Potter?" She looked up, Harry backed down the stairs and waited in an alcove until she appeared, her wand out, aiming it at him.

"Potter what do you want?"

"A chat." Harry said, keeping his voice calm and level and wondered if all this was worth, especially what it might do to the rest of his house.

But ultimately he was still annoyed, Hermione had asked him about it. He loved having Ron back as his friend, but he was still hurting from the betrayal that he'd felt when Ron had turned his back forcefully on him.

This wasn't surprising the enemy, aside from her being Slytherin she wasn't the enemy, not yet. Just as the Magister wasn't always the Doctor's, perhaps Slytherin could also, not be someone to go around stabbing people in the back.

Or maybe he just wanted to do something weird, out of the ordinary, maybe he just wanted to surprise everyone.

Maybe he was just feeling a bit out of sorts from finding out Cho was going with Cedric.

"About what?" Her wand still pointing at him.

Harry brought the rose from behind his back, Greengrass flinched and then stared at it.

"Would you accompany me to the Yule Ball?"

She didn't laugh, which was a good thing, she didn't lower her wand either.

"You can't be that desperate." She said after a moment. Harry shrugged nonchantly.

"Why should I be desperate to ask you to the Ball?"

"Why indeed?" She paused, lowering her wand and accepting the rose, waving her wand over it, checking. "A good piece of transfiguration, for a Gryffindor."

"That is high praise, for a Slytherin." Harry smirked.

"Well why Potter?"

"You saw how Ron-"

"Weasley."

"Acted."

"When you put your name in the cup."

"I didn't." Harry answered quickly. He had to admit, it was odd speaking like this with someone potentially dangerous. Maybe he'd gotten used to the adrenaline rushes from dangerous situations…? "Maybe I just want to ask you to the ball."

"Weasley and your housemates won't see it that way."

"Why should I care? They didn't believe me when I said I didn't put my name in the cup."

"What's to stop me stunning you before the ball?"

"Nothing, but at least I would be expecting it, from a Slytherin." Harry smiled as he said it.

She nodded to him.

"Very well Mr Potter, you shall have your dance." She handed him back the rose, which was now a bunch of roses.

--//

Harry couldn't work out how Ron had got _both_ Padma and Parvati to go with him to the Yule ball. Ron couldn't work it out either.

His house mates hadn't stopped asking him who he'd asked to the ball.

Honestly he didn't have the nerve to tell them he'd asked a _Slytherin_, admittedly one of the attractive Slytherins to the ball. As he looked back on his invitation to Greengrass he suspected he'd been suffering delayed effects of concussion, or madness or something. He decided he was just channeling his two alien friends a little too much.

As he and the others went down into the common room Parvati took Ron's arm, he still looked slightly dazed at the prospect.

"Padma's going to meet us in the entrance hall." She giggled. Harry just smiled.

"What about your partner Harry, who're you taking?" Dean asked.

"It's a surprise." He smiled and left in a quick step out of the portrait hole before anyone could follow.

Harry looked around for Greengrass, they had only spoken once since their first conversation, he would meet her in corridor off off the main staircase down to the dungeons.

He had to admit she was stunning, even in dark green dress she wore.

"_Ms_ Greengrass."

"_Mr_ Potter." She smiled carefully at him, Harry wondered if she had a dagger in her dress.

"The public awaits." Harry gestured.

"Champions over here."

"Harry?!" He heard Ron cry as he put his arm out to Daphne.

"See you inside Ron." Harry called as he felt Daphne pull him towards the assembled group.

If the sight hadn't shocked Ron, seeing Hermione certainly did, behind him he heard Ron trip and probably being caught by the two girls on either side of him.

Harry couldn't tell if anyone was looking at him or not, he was focusing on staring into the middle distance.

He was sure there were some looks of disbelief.

But the main event was still to come, walking into the great hall.

"Ready Potter?"

"For what _Daphne_?" He asked as they formed up in pairs in front of the door, they were standing behind Fleur and Roger.

"_You_ are standing with a Slytherin."

"If my best friend can so easily turn on me, why should I worry about anything that can happen this night."

"Your friend also seemed to dislike the mu-"

"Pleasantries please _Daphne_."

"The date your _muggle_ friend found, though I am surprised."

"As am I." Harry answered as the doors opened and they began walking forward. Harry for the most part concentrating on not stepping on Fleur's dress ahead of him and waiting for the inevitable assassination attempts.

Dumbledore seemed very amused by something as they took their seats at the top table.

Harry looked over at Daphne, who did not seem like she was enjoying Percy's commentary.

"Is it customary to not know anything about your partners for these things?" he asked in a low voice to the only person he could Daphne Greengrass after he'd spend a good 10 minutes eavesdropping on everyone's conversations.

"_You_ don't know anything about me Potter."

"Would you tell me if I asked?"

"No."

"Perhaps we can talk about the delightful Slytherin common room then, I particularly like the sofas, very stiff, and then there's that painting on the wall…"

Daphne turned her eyes wide and looked at him for several moments.

"You've been in the Slytherin common rooms." It was a statement rather than a question.

"The goulash is excellent isn't it?" Harry answered, smiling at her.

Then when all the food was consumed they had to start the part of the night Harry had been dreading.

"Just follow my lead Potter, no doubt your muggle relatives never taught you how to dance."

"No." Harry said shortly. "In this arena _Daphne_ I shall bow to your experience." Harry said, allowing himself to be lead to the dance floor.

After several songs the music turned to a new faster song. He and Daphne both looked across the dance floor to see Fred and Angelina dancing in a frantic and exuberant manner that made everyone give them a wide berth from their flailing limbs.

"A break Potter, I think. It seems your little muggle friend is being interrogated by Weasley." She said as she walked off towards the drinks table and some other Slytherin girls.

"He's from Durmstrang!" Ron spat, he hadn't seen Harry. "He's competing against Harry! Against Hogwarts! You – you're " Ron stuttered searching for words to describe Hermione's actions "fraternizing with the enemy, that's what you're doing!"

Hermione's mouth fell open.

"Then what would I be doing?" Harry asked an amused tone in his voice as Ron spun around to face him.

"What are you doing Harry! A slimy Slytherin, you asked a Slytherin to the ball how could you?"

"Better the enemy you know Ron."

"What?!" He spat angrily at him.

"Perhaps better dancing with an enemy you know than a friend who will turn tail and stab you in the back." He said to Ron.

"Harry I…I told you…that I…" Ron started, speechless at Harry's cold answer. Then he turned back to Hermione and started attacking her about Krum again.

Harry shook his head and took Hermione's arm.

"Come on Hermione, the air's a little _thick_ here at the moment, I think you should find your partner, and I'll find mine." Harry pushed her off into the crowd slightly bewildered.

"Harry you, after everything we…"

"Lets have a word outside." As he passed the door he pushed Ron out it and looked around the room Daphne was in deep conversation with some Durmstrang boys.

"You really are thick you know that Ron."

"What you and Hermione are the ones dancing with the enemy!"

"I don't have a problem with Krum."

"What about the Slytherin you were with."

"What about your Hugh Hefner routine?"

"Who?" Harry decided he didn't need to explain _that_ reference.

"Fine so I asked a Slytherin it's not as though I asked Malfoy out." Ron visibly shuddered at the thought.

"But a Slytherin…"

Harry pushed him to the side as they heard the familiar voice of Snape.

--//

"Where have you been?" Greengrass asked as he returned.

"Hanging out in some bushes, spying on various private conversations and generally eavesdropping on damaging information, you?"

"Got you a drink." She deadpanned. "What was it about?"

Harry smirked. "Do you expect me to tell you?"

"No, but according to Weasley's I'm the enemy."

"Maybe you are. But I know a few people who still occasionally get on well with their friends."

"Really?" She asked as they put down their cups.

"In between trying to kill one another."

--//

Harry walked back up the common rooms, all up it had been a slightly odd night, Cedric telling him to have a bath had been even weirder.

He returned to the common room to find Hermione and Ron arguing.

"Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does, not as a last resort!"

Harry smiled to himself and shrugged at Ron's thunderstruck confused expression.

--//

The fallout from his choice of partner to the ball had been better than he expected, honestly he'd had worst after the Heir of Slytherin business, which everyone seemed to have forgotten. In his mind though Harry thought that would have been something someone would have picked up on, to annoy him with.

He did have to put up with Fred and George frequently patting him on the back and congratulating him on his 'daring choice' 'not even they' would have chosen a _Slytherin._

Not that it had changed anything with the Slytherins, though whenever he'd seen Malfoy in the corridors he kept giving him very weird looks, though still with the general insults and what not. Which made him suspicious.

But he had other things on his mind other than simple insults and suggestions by upper classmates that he was setting himself up to be the next dark lord with a Slytherin bride. He was still trying to think how to repay Fred and George for that rumour that was drifting around. There was also supposedly a poll they were running on how long it would take Ron _really_ get over the fact he'd taken a Slytherin to the ball. Or perhaps there were the more worrying issues, like the egg and the less worrying but just as much concern that Ron mightn't move beyond sometimes puerile nature with regards to anything that didn't fit his small world view.

Or maybe he was being to judgmental of Ron, but he did admit quietly to himself he did like seeing Ron's stunned expression as he danced with Greengrass.

Beyond all this Ron was still his best mate, but…and that was the problem there was always going to be a but until he could know he wasn't going to stab him in the back _again_.

--//

Harry sat on the castle steps watching the ship in the lake bob back and forth. He still felt cold and he still had a blanket around his shoulders.

The second task had been _scary_, scary that someone could be put in a situation like that, scary that they made it out as a game. _Fine_ they had said they were asleep, but they could have died, the merepeople had certainly looked like they were going to kill him.

All for this Tournament, the stupid binding contract of it all.

He felt a presence beside him and the light floral aroma of Fleur Delacour.

"Mousier Potter."

"Mademoiselle Delacour." Harry turned his head, she had a large coat on, though her expression was stormy.

"This task today was hard, no?"

"Yes." Harry said wrapping the blanket around himself. "Your sister is fine now?"

"Oui. Madame Maxime told us she knew of it all." She said with some concern in her voice.

"Though you're still worried." He looked out across the horizon.

"Oui, you feel it too?"

Harry nodded. "A storm's approaching."

--//

Harry stood, staring amazed at the twenty foot high hedges but then started to pat down his pockets as they begin to prepare for the final task.

After the first two he'd decided to be prepared, he had Sirius's knife in his pocket, along with the Doctor's STEB (spacio-temporal emergence beacon) inside a secreted internal pocket of his jeans. He'd considered wearing the fireproof vest and pants that had survived the encounter with the dragon, but they somewhat restricted his movement, and now looking at this veritable maze, he was glad of the decision, and also taking the time between the afternoon and the lead up to dinner to go and change and get these things into his pockets.

He just hoped he wouldn't have any need for anything drastic.

--//

_That_ voice the voice that had been haunting his nightmares.

"_Kill the spare_."

His heart was pounding hard as he ran over to Cedric, he knew he was dead, knew too well what the green light, and those words meant, but he had to check, had to make sure.

He was still warm, just like the life in him had stopped. He stood up to try and run, try to face the thing that had done this, but he couldn't.

He was being dragged along the ground, dirt and rocks gouging into his leg wound. Then he was slammed into a headstone, knocking the wind out of him, as he was wheezing for air he saw the name.

_Tom Riddle_

Harry looked around, his hands numb either because of the ropes or the cold, his wand was between Cedric and the cup, resting unhelpfully on the ground.

The bonds that were holding him were too tight to wriggle out of. Why he hadn't quizzed Jo Grant about escapology when he'd had the chance? Probably because back then he'd been happy to go on a great adventure to Hogwarts, where he didn't think anyone would die and no one would ever be hurt.

"_Flesh of the servant w-willingly given – you will revive your master"_ Harry realised a moment before what Wormtail was about to do. He wanted to close his eyes, but it gave him a grim amount of satisfaction how much he screamed doing so. It also worried him the level of fanaticism he must have to do it.

He tried to stuggle at Wormtail as he came at him with the knife and phial, despite being a silver knife it looked filfthy, like Wormtail's robes. But it's cut was like fire and as the wound dripped with blood it was like napalm on his skin.

Despite the situation and the mind blowing pain that he was in, it was oddly fascinating, Harry was sure he'd never find all of this out if he weren't tied to a grave while Voldemort paraded around idly chatting. As far as coming face to face, again with a megalomaniac…actually it was as worst as he could imagine. He could just about see Cedric out the corner of his eye, his eyes still open, staring blankly at the assembled crowd, murders all of them and then some.

He had thought that last year had been less frought than the previous two, but with it, Wormtail, now to this point.

"_Crucio!_"

It was pain beyond anything Harry had ever experienced, it was almost beyond description, it was colour and light as though extremes were playing over his body making him twitch and shake, as though every nerve were on fire, burning in the heart of a sun, he wanted to scream, but his windpipe was spasmming and he could barely breath. He was sure he was going to black out soon, or he would suffer a stroke or something.

Then it was gone.

He was still twitching, hanging off the ropes, he wasn't making his body twitch he realised, not consciously, but he couldn't stop it.

"And now we duel"

Harry rolled away, his legs spasmming from the Cruciatus curse, just a set of words in a text book, there was a lot of difference between reading and experiencing.

He propped himself up and tried firing off a leg locker and a stunner towards Voldemort.

He wasn't going to die like Cedric, no matter how much those red eyes burrowed into his mind, he continued to focus being on his own person.

Looking around the gravestone a spell came over and pummeled into his shoulder sending him flying diagonally backwards and slammed him sideways into another gravestone.

He heard several things crack, it was definitely his ribs, he'd felt that feeling before.

He coughed and spat out _a lot_ of blood.

Someone was cackling, but it felt muffled.

He pushed himself up, conscious of the pain building in his chest.

"Stupefy, stupefy, stupefy!" He shouted aiming wildly, he didn't care of he got Voldemort, even if he got some of his Death Eaters it'd be good.

Harry fell backwards as the gravestone he'd been propping himself up against to fire spells out lifted up into the air, and then dropped, all he could hear as almost in slow motion as he tried to banish it away.

The pain in his left lung was magnified as he wretched out the piece of marble that had buried itself in one of his upper ribs like a thick knife.

He ignored the pain and the blood which was cascading down his front and pushed himself to his feet, just.

He could barely breath, then he felt another flash and someone was in his mind telling him to do something.

Blood was trickling over his eyes, he bit his tongue hard and tried to focus on that pain as he crawled, dragging his leg that had been smashed by a transfigured gravestone how many more were in this graveyard.

Harry coughed and coughed and again feeling air under his ribs, and then spat out even more blood. The cold air was keeping him awake but…

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Expelliarmus!"

As the two spells met in the air his wand started to vibrate, he had to use both hands to hold it, he screamed as he did so, he was been using his left hand to hold together a gash in his side that had been threatening to let spill more blood and organs onto the already bloody ground.

He was barely aware of the bolts of energy that were flying around, hitting the Death Eaters that were around them.

The thread of golden light split off and spun around them, bolts of energy flinging of it as they spun into the sky.

"Do nothing! Do nothing unless I command you!" Voldemort was shouting. Harry just wanted it to be over, his vision was stained red, and his clothes were wet with blood.

He wasn't sure how he was still standing, until he looked over blinking through the blood at Voldemort and saw he was levitating above the ground. He'd thought that sensation of hovering was just blood loss.

The voices were speaking, Harry still wasn't sure if this was concussion or blood loss, they were talking, some people he'd seen in dreams, others in memory, maybe some in his imagination, maybe this was what this was, the last throws of his imagination the dying spasms of his brain through blood loss and brain injury.

Then something was shouting 'NOW'. Harry felt the energy explode outwards and he was slammed into the ground.

Someone was standing over him.

"Now you die Harry Potter, of your own making on my father's grave, how fitting." Said the cold, high pitched voice and then a series of pops began.

Harry pushed himself up, weakly, he recalled someone talking about a cup, but everything was so fuzzy and he was so cold.

Weakly he pushed his hand into his pocket trying to grab for something, trying to grab the beacon, he pushed, his muscles screamed as he tried to make it to the cup or the small beacon in his pocket, the cup though was so far away, or it just looked far, Harry grabbed at his pocket, his fingers slipping and sliding slimy with blood and pushed the small button, and then he shivered and shook, his eyes closing to the night.

--//

Martha leaned back into the chair next the console, the Doctor was digging around in the grating underneath the console, something about the 'orbital rectifier' on the blink again.

Then a noise started, it was high pitched and pulsing, like a fire alarm.

"What?" The Doctor pushed himself up running around the console and grabbed the screen.

"What's it about, some kind of alarm?"

"Some sort of alert beacon…" His eyes widened. "Temporal, an emergency beacon wailing out through time and space."

"Someone who knows you is sending out a signal? What do you do give out a 999 number?" Martha asked.

"STEB, spacio-temporal alert beacon, only, only one person I gave that too, long time ago." He grabbed a hold of several levers. "Locking onto temporal coordinates, hang on!" He grinned, the TARDIS lurched.

"Oh no, no, no." He looked at the screen again, it was making a slow beep, beep, which Martha realised had been growing slower and slower, almost like…a heart monitor.

"Come on, grab that bag Doctor Jones!" He pointed to an old duffle bag that had a familiar cross on the side and ran out the TARDIS doors.

Martha ran out following him into, into what looked like a warzone.

"Over here Martha!" He shouted, he was gingerly turning over…

"Oh my god is he?"

"Barely." He dived a hand into the bag and grabbed out two small canisters the size of two mugs and clamped it to the young boy's right arm.

"Stabilising fluid, should replenish some of his blood and vitals." He said by way of explanation to her. "Oh Harry, I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry." He whispered to him. "Get the hover stretcher out, on the side there." He pointed.

Martha looked, she already felt like an intern with a _doctor_ ordering her about, not that she minded. The 'hover stretcher was just four long rods, that according to the instructions she just put around the patient and pushed a button on the package.

As she moved around the young man she looked over him, he was suffering massive blood loss, head trauma, broken ribs, lung trauma by something large being stabbed and pulled out of his chest, kidney and liver trauma by something by the scratch marks around the flesh…"Oh my god." She said again, as her eyes darted to the boy's hands, he'd been holding the wound closed with his hand, so much so nail marks were gouged into the flesh.

"Doctor…" The boy whispered.

"I'm here Harry, I'm here, just rest, please."

The boy, Harry coughed, his whole body spasmming and twitching as he did so.

"Ce-Cedric, c-c-cup, dangerous." He whispered before his eyes rolled sideways. The Doctor ran his sonic screwdriver over him, shaking his head.

"Take him into the TARDIS, next opposite your room there's sick bay, use what you need. Go!" He shouted roughly.

"What about you? Can't you?" Martha pushed the button on the stretcher.

"Go Doctor Jones! I need to see to others." He looked across the blood and marble and whatever else strewn ground. There was another body, a boy maybe slightly older, lying eyes open on the ground.

She nodded, pushing the 'stretcher' towards the TARDIS.

The Doctor walked over to the body, reaching down and closed the young boy's eyes, he was barely older than Harry, and yet here he was dead, on a battleground.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He whispered returning to the medical bag and getting a second hover stretcher and a white sheet, setting both up before walking over to the cup that Harry had warned him of. So concerned, so worried even with so many injuries.

"Now, what are you for?" He slipped on his glasses and activated the sonic screwdriver. "Not any normal sort of magic cup are you, traces of magical elements, ah! Location based tracing, you'd pull whoever touched you across half a country!" He grinned. "Who would do that, just for this?" The Doctor muttered to himself. "And why, two Hogwarts students?" he whipped out a dark velvet bag and slipped it over the bag, tying it up with flare. "Safe and tight, no transporting anyone else." He looked back to the body of the young man.

Martha felt the TARDIS shake as they took off, but kept her full attention on her patient. The machines around the 'sick bay' were more advanced than anything on the _SS Pentallian_, or anywhere else, but also at the same time they were familiar. Some of them had gone to work on their own after she'd input his species and age, from what she could see repairing the organ damage and traumas her patient had. She'd set up an IV drip for the pain he was in if the twitching and convulsing was anything to go by.

The Doctor walked, Martha looked up from a screen next to Harry's bed.

"Where's the other boy?" She asked.

"The morgue." He said. He never thought, after the Time War he'd ever have to use the morgue again. It had been, bad, being in there, bad memories.

As had seeing Harry like this, he had lost too many people who died alone, in the darkness, screaming in agony.

He looked at the one of the screens.

"How is he?" Martha asked.

"He'll pull through, always does, good, good ole Harry." He said looking down, at the broken boy, reconstructed.

"Where are we, I felt us."

"Temporal orbit, bit rusty, it's been ages since I…well I while, sort of hovering over a certain time. Like a bookmark, in time. We can drop back down, more or less, back into time, without any of it passing. Only useful here and there."

"How did this happen to him, he can't be more than 15."

"14, he's 14."

"But who is he Doctor? How did this happen?"

"He's a friend, someone I feel like I've known all my life." He said pulling up a chair and leaning back reminiscing.

"I first met him when I was travelling, two school teachers, very proper, it was the 60s after all, but they loved it, though I hardly ever told them I loved them…"

--//

"You forgot to mention I could talk to snakes." Martha stared wide eyed before leaping out of her chair to check Harry's vitals, listening to the Doctor talk it was as though the young man he talked about and this broken person before her were two different people.

"Hello there Harry Potter, how long have you been awaking listing to us chat on like a pair of old ladies in a tea shop?" The Doctor asked grinning leaning back into his chair.

Martha looked back at the Doctor, the smile was there, and the squeaky voice as he talked, but it didn't reach his eyes, he was still really worried, she'd seen the look in his eyes on the _SS Pentallian_, and when they'd been at Richard Lazarus's experiment.

Harry coughed and cringed and started wheezing agin.

"Careful, you're ribs are still re-stitching, and you've suffered massive internal injuries."

"And external if I'm in that much pain." He said with a weak smile.

"I'll increase your pain medication." She said reaching over to an IV drip that was hanging beside the bed.

"Just rest Harry, just rest." The Doctor murmured looked at him, concern plastered over his face.

"No time not in the TARDIS. Finally got to see inside it." Harry smiled before he couldn't keep his eyes open…

Martha leaned back on the chair, the Doctor had disappeared into the TARDIS, she'd in fact told him to go off, get her a drink or something, having him stare over her while she maintained a watch. It was like in the hospital having the parents of children watching your every move, sometimes you just needed them away, to check the patient over.

Also the Doctor couldn't stay still for too long, like nervous energy.

She had thought Harry had settled down, all his injuries were settling in and healing for the really bad wounds the Doctor had given her some sort of salve in an old clay pot, which had almost been empty, but it had done wonders on some of the wounds that had refused to heal or stop bleeding in some cases.

Martha Jones was almost managing to relax whilst keeping an eye on her young, horribly injured patient when he started convulsing.

She leapt out of her chair so fast it skitted backwards as leapt to try find out the cause, all the monitors and equipment were all redlining, calling out alerts to the operator.

"Doctor!" She shouted towards the doorway as she checked his airway.

The Doctor came running in.

"What is it what's wrong?"

"He just started seizing, I don't know what all these mean, he can't be suffering heart failure and all these."

"Oh no, no, no." The Doctor reached out with both hands operating two controls she hadn't seen above the bed, around her machines hummed and Harry stopped shaking and seizing, he was still twitching when the Doctor stopped whatever he was doing.

"Is that, is he okay now?" She asked as the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver holding it over Harry's body.

Then he ran his hand through his hair and spat "He was tortured, the _Cruciatus_ curse."

"Cruciatus? Is that some sort of…" She trailed off, after the Carrionites and everything she was willing to believe in magic, but this, to torture someone as young as this.

"It targets every single nerve in the body, sets them on edge, on fire, like being blasted across everything, you can see what it's doing."

"Will it wear off, he's not going to handle this forever?"

"No, it should but, no. His injuries it would have soaked up into his biomass." He started to pace around the room, Martha looked at Harry who was still twitching.

"What is it Doctor, what do we need to do?" She pleaded with him.

"Aww we need! We need! Wee need something to help his biology through this, sharing, diluting it."

"Like a blood transfusion? I'm a universal donor." She offered.

"No." Then he grinned at her. "Yes Martha Jones, you're brilliant." He walked over to one of the cupboards pulling out a series of plastic white cubes, but then stopped and walked back over to her.

"I can tie your biology into Harry's you would be sharing the bio-fallout from the curse's effects and help his body pass the worst of it. I would do it myself but…"

"Time Lord physiology too different for him?" She asked trying to lighten the mood.

"Among other things, it might kill me." He said and looked her in the eye. "This will be painful, you will be experiencing the vestiges of the curse."

"I can do it Doctor, anything to help my patient."

"Regular Florence Nightingale Martha Jones." He grinned and turned back to work.

Martha leaned back in the leather chair the Doctor had dragged in from somewhere. She felt like she was giving blood, but there was the large device over her head like a halo.

The Doctor was fixing small pads onto her wrists, ankles and temples.

"Are you sure Martha, there will be some pain." He looked down at her conern seemingly split between her and Harry who was still lying on the bed twitching.

"Can't be too bad, Harry's got through it."

"Right, but, once I switch this on I can't turn it off until it's finished, the shock could kill both of you."

"I'll be fine." She smiled to him, he grinned back, slipping on his glasses and pulled around the two screens that he'd set up on a portable trolley between the two of them.

"Activating in three, two, one…" The humming around the room changed.

Martha arched her back and could feel herself twitching it was like…she wasn't sure it was unlike anything she had ever experienced, the white hot extreme sharp pain throughout her body. It made her want to scream but she could feel her muscles spasmming as her body clawed for breath as convulsions passed through her in waves of pain.

It didn't decrease it all just kept increasing and then ebbing away to only extreme then upwards to indescribable. She could see spots beginning to appear in her vision and there was a dull ringing like tinnitus beginning in her ears.

As some point as she was writhing on the chair she realised she must have black out.

Whenever she awoke the Doctor was standing over her a calm expression on his face.

"Here." He offered her a glass off bubbling water.

"Wh…?"

"Evanescent water from Florana, all the water is evanescent there, brilliant stuff, you can float in the lakes the bubbles support you, marvelous feeling, like being in zero gravity without all that loosing all the stuff in your pockets, especially for me." He dropped two pills into her hand. "Anti-nausea and de-stress tablets, might make you a bit…" He shrugged.

"High?" Martha asked after swallowing some of the water, she could feel the bubbles tickling her throat all the way down into her stomach.

"Well…it might make you a bit less than lucid, though probably best."

Martha looked at the two pills and back to the man, the more than a man, the Time Lord she'd been travelling with, as she weighed the pills in her hands she felt another twinge of pain throughout her body and winced.

"That should go away Martha, I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"Don't you go apologising to me. I wanted to do it to help me." She threw the pills into her mouth and swallowed them down with the bubbly water. "Is he going to be alight?" She asked looking over to where he seemed to be sleeping normally, all the devices had friendly green lights and indicators showing.

"Yes, should be, a bit of rest and then a chat to find out how…how he ended up in that graveyard."

"And what happened to the other boy." She said recalling the eyes of the other boy who had been there; dead beside him.

--//

The Doctor leaned back listening to Harry's story with a growing sense of anger about the whole chain of events that all the way up to his nearly dieing at the hands of Tom Marvolo Riddle aka Lord Voldemort.

"Now you." Harry asked, he was sitting up in the bed eating some soup that the Doctor had brought over. He'd asked where Martha was, sleeping, something she'd done to help him the Doctor had said, he only remembered vaguely what had happened. It felt like someone had briefly taken away all the pain, it had felt serene and had really been a bit of a breather.

Though he was still in pain, considering the injuries that Doctor had showed him he was amazed he was still alive.

"Me? What'd you want to know about me for, little old me, I'm regular, normal, just as always."

Harry grinned. "How'd you get here and what body are you on?" He asked again, the Doctor whipped off his glasses to look at him.

"Why'd you wanna know that, bit rude, asking a lady her age."

"If you're a lady I'm a Martian."

"Could be." He said crossing his arms.

"Not last time, when you were all grumpy." The Doctor blinked at him. "Fine morose okay?" Harry paused to swallow more of the soup which he wasn't sure what it was, the Doctor had been a bit vague on that front. "When you visited me with Charley after Hermione and my whole time travelling experience you were going on about how when you were getting older the 'web of time' was less of a web and more a series of connections that you tended to jump through and around and that things became less ordered and more complicated."

"I said that did I?" The Doctor asked looking up to the roof, Harry folliowed his gaze and winced as his neck strained.

"With lots of hand gestures, and fast talking and all breathless."

"Ah but that was then I was, younger, I liked Velvet and a waistcoat and had springy hair, I'm nothing like that now."

"So you are older."

"Only age wise." He smiled.

"What body?"

"Tenth." He answered simply. Harry leant back into the bed for a moment.

"So will I meet more of you, along the line?"

"I'm not sure, probably, time is a complicated wibbly wibbly process Harry and…"

"And?" Harry pushed.

"Some things are vague in my memory. There was…nah it doesn't matter, you finish your soup and then we'll sort out the rest of this stuff."

"No Doctor, tell me."

"Later, maybe we'll meet again, when you and I are older."

"Paradoxes?" Harry tried.

"What?"

"You know me knowing about your present which is your past, but in my future I meet your past and potentially let something slip that you then remember in your past about your future."

"What?" His tone went up slightly. "What are you going on about?"

Harry shook his head. "Never mind."

"He invited you, really?"

"I wanted to go, what'd you mean?"

"He kidnaps people." Harry nodded towards the door. He wasn't sure how long it had been, he'd slept after the Doctor had left him after his meal.

"How many people have travelled with him?"

Harry made a face thinking. "I think he should tell you."

"That many!" She laughed.

"I haven't met them all, I've just known he's been around the universe a few times."

"And other universes as well. Hello there, having a chat about me behind my back?" A head pocked its way around the door to the sick bay followed by the rest of the Doctor's body.

"Fancy a walk?" He asked.

"Doctor are you sure he's well enough to walk?"

"I'd love to!" He felt like he wanted to leap out of bed, but cringed at the sudden movement, all over his body ached, Martha held out a dressing gown and there were slippers on the floor that he'd used when he'd gone to the toilet.

Harry walked along the corridor, Martha had gone off somewhere muttering to the Doctor about giving them some time to chat.

"This isn't how I imagined the interior of your TARDIS to be." Harry ran a hand along the side of the corridor, it was rough, like sandstone or coral.

"What do you mean?" He mirrored Harry's actions.

"Well how Ian and Barbara and Jo and Sarah, and Nyssa and Tegan and Romana and you a bit said it was all white with roundels and everything, very white, this is more…textured, it's like being at the beach, not that I've ever been." Harry said. "Though I was curious to see what Charely was saying all gothic with the symbol of Rassilon everywhere." The Doctor turned away at the mention of Rassilon. "Turned away again, forced you to regenerate, again?" He asked softer.

"Nothing like that." The Doctor stopped walked and leaned against one side of the corridor. "There was a war, a Time War. We, the Time Lords fought a great huge time war against the Daleks, the great Dalek Empire burning across the whole 'web of time'. For the sake of all creation. We lost. They lost. Everything's gone now. My home, lost to the depths of time and war."

The Doctor looked down Harry was hugging him tightly, and he was hugging him back. It felt good, telling someone, someone who knew, who understood a bit, the enormity of it, who'd known him when he was young and crotchety and a little bit older and rushing around with cars and gadgets, and mad beady eyes and when he used the like waffling on about the web of time, when he liked to remind himself about home with old Rassilon's mark watching over him, keeping away the vampires and the dark things that lurked on the edge of the universe.

Then as though my mutual agreement they stepped away from each other.

"Now then! Time to get you some new clothes, can't have you going around in a dressing gown."

The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets and continued down the corridor at a slow pace.

"What about Arthur Dent, he got a good go of it in a dressing gown?"

"What a man, visiting Earth with all those Fjords in his jim-jams and dressing gown." The Doctor grinned.

"And a towel."

"You're always a hoopy frood when you know where your towel is, especially if you're going to hitch hike around the universe. Dangerous sport hitch hiking transmats are often badly maintained, you arrive feeling like you've left half of yourself behind on the ground."

Harry couldn't believe what the Doctor and Martha were telling him, about what he'd gone through, the injuries he'd sustained and also about the Tri-Wizard Tournament and the so called 'binding contract'.

The Doctor had also explained about the cup, it was as Voldemort had said, it'd been placed there, but why anyone hadn't checked it, there should have been double and triple checks now that he thought about it. Now that he didn't have his mind clouded by the need to win, it all seemed a bit immaterial now.

The air was cold in the morgue, it was all dark cool stone, in complete contrast to the rest of the TARDIS. He wanted to see him, see him before they returned to Hogwarts. To…he wasn't sure, say sorry, say good bye, just to…he couldn't really process it in his mind.

There was a white sheet lying over his body.

Harry forced himself to lift up the sheet, to look at the body, to look at the boy Voldemort killed.

"I'll get him Cedric, I'll stop him, I won't forget." He whispered to himself as he pulled the sheet back over Cedric's body and walked back out to the corridor, where he crumpled into Martha's arms.

--//

It was late, late into the night there were five people sitting in the great hall. Albus Dumbledore Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape and much to the disgust of the latter Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley. Talking about what they had discovered and those who were missing.

When Harry had failed to return Hermione and Ron had gone to the only teacher whom they thought would know about dark magic, after it was found that Krum had had dark magic cast on him and in turn Fleur. Professor Moody.

Hermione wasn't sure how long she and Ron had been tied down and interrogated by the man she now knew as Crouch but it was something that would haunt her.

They'd been rescued by Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape and found out the whole secret and that they'd never met the real Moody.

Also supposedly the cup had been a portkey. Hermione had never seen Dumbledore so enraged, so determined to get information from someone. But all he kept saying was that the portkey was created to send Harry (and Cedric it seemed) to his master – Voldemort.

Now Harry and Cedric were both missing.

They were meeting here talking about everything that had happened to try and discover something each of them might know to lead them to Harry and Cedric.

Supposedly it was less conspicuous to be meeting in the Great Hall than Dumbledore's office. There was also a very anxious Sirius Black who was in Dumbledore's office, but Hermione only knew that from eavesdropping on Dumbledore and McGonagall.

Suddenly the doors of the Great Hall blew open and a wind blew into the room blowing napkins and leaves around the hall. All three teachers were out of their chairs, wands out, she and Ron followed suit.

This was followed almost immediately by a groaning, almost like trumpets, sort of like noises of a piano run backwards on a record, it echoed around the hall being amplified by the acoustics of the hall and back again, she could almost see something just outside the hall, a light flashing and something coming into existence in the darkness.

Hermione made a move to step forward.

"No Miss Granger." Dumbledore said softly, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Then a young man in a long coat walked into the room, followed by a younger woman and…

"Harry!" She and Ron shouted and made to run forward but both were grabbed a hold of by McGonagol and Dumbledore.

"Voledmort, he faced Voldemort! You" The Doctor waved a hand around the three teachers "are his teachers, his guardians when he's in your care, how could you presume to put him in the 'Tri-Wizard Tournament'?!" The Doctor shouted around the room.

"It was a contract, a binding _wizard_ contract muggle." Snape gestured with his wand a spell shot out of it towards the Doctor.

"Muggle? Muggle? I name you Severus Snape. I am no muggle, such a paltry boring term for such a brilliant vibrant people, you're not a muggle are you Martha, you're a human, a person, not a boring old word, a put down, by those who think they're _superior_." Snape waved his wand at the Doctor and…nothing happened. The Doctor grinned.

"Simplicity, just like the Carrionites." He said in a low voice back to Martha and then started stalking the room again, his voice becoming angrier and he began to shout more. "Your contracts meant nothing, there hasn't been a binding wizarding contract where the person is entered in absentia since the time of Napoleon! And you force a 14 year old, a 14 year old that hasn't even achieved age of consent in your or the 'Muggle'" The Doctor spat this word "world and you force him through the three tasks, each that could have killed him and his friends in the case of the second, there underwater dwellers have been known throughout history as being volatile at best and you throw them down there as part of a game!" The he muttered low, Harry had to struggle to hear "Older races stopped playing games like that a long time ago."

"Did you think it was another trial for him, Harry Potter? That the last three years wasn't a hard enough tour of pain for him and his friends, Voldemort, Voledmort in the chamber, Peter Pettigrew hiding right beneath your noses and now Voldemort reborn! From Harry's blood! And you all of you complacent in keeping him in this farce of a competition that lead to those events! You all so wrapped up in your little world didn't think, didn't look outside to the bigger world. Your Tri-Wizard Tournament, just a front for back dealings and manipulations!"

"And who if I might ask are you?" Dumbledore's voice projected across the hall to where the Doctor was standing.

"Me. I'm the one who rescued Harry Potter where he lay dying after battling Voldemort and his collected Death Eaters, I am the one who found him and your cup." He turned around, Martha passed him a bag. He threw it onto the table. "Laced with transportation spells and the bio-matter and psychic traces of a man supposedly dead and buried in Azkaban!" He shouted. Harry looked across and saw Hermione whispering to Ron her eyes wide.

He just shoved his hands into the jacket he'd selected from the Doctor's wardrobe room in the TARDIS, which looked like he never threw any of his old outfits out, in case probably that one of this other selves popped round, only breaking one or so of the laws of time.

"But who…"

"I'm the cat who walks through time, the watchmaker who sees all the clocks ticking, I am ice and fire, I''ve seen time's beating heart, I am older than any of you and have seen the ends of the Earth. Do not try my Albus Dumbledore, I have a many more depths than you with your ideas of power can reach." He finished coldly.

Then he turned away from them back to Harry.

"Quite a performance." Harry said in a low voice.

"All true, all true." He repeated, his expression still clouded in darkness. "We should go, before they get nosy about the TARDIS." He muttered.

"Thank you Doctor!" Harry reached up, hugging him again.

"And you, Harry Potter" He said returning the hug. "I'm sure we'll meet again, we always do."

"Yeah, even if _you_ can't remember it!"

"Hey, I'm old, can't remember everything." He grinned.

"Thanks Martha." He hugged her also. "For everything, I know you…"

"Anything for a friend, and I'll be seeing you too again Harry, even if we have to wait a while."

"So I don't meet you as a teenager or something!" He joked, but the Doctor frowned. Harry muttered to him. "I know! I wouldn't do something like that and muck with the web of time, I'm not insane!"

The Doctor paused at the doorway, Martha had already gone through. "Goodby _wizards_" He said with the same inflection Snape had used for 'muggle'. "Goodby Harry."

"Thanks Doctor, see ya!" He waved. The Doctor grinned.

Harry walked, oblivious to the others in the room to the doorway and watched as the TARDIS begin to dematerialise, he felt someone run up beside him.

"So that's him, your mysterious friend!" Hermione said slightly breathless as she saw the outline of the TARDIS disappear.

"Harry." Harry looked up as Dumbledore walked over to him. "Where is Cedric?"

"We put him in the hospital wing." He said solomly. "He was killed by Voldemort."

"Please Harry can you tell us everything?" Harry nodded walking back into the great hall.

He didn't tell them everything, not about the Doctor, no matter how much Snape and oddly Ron pushed. It was amusing seeing them both asking the same questions. Even Dumbledore had a chuckle when they realised this.

Dumbledore in turn explained about Moody, who wasn't Moody.

"So he was in the perfect disguise." Harry despite what had happened couldn't help but smirk at the similarities in life between things. "I should have seen that coming."

--//

Harry knew the argument with Fudge would come of nothing, politicians were all the same, the Doctor had explained some very vague things about Fudge and what he'd do, or not do, not listen to advice. It seemed events were going as the Doctor had implied they would. He wasn't sure how he felt about that knowledge.

--//

A month later he was in a room with Cedric's parents, he'd wanted to do this alone, to explain to them, to tell them everything Cedric had done, the bravery of him, how he'd been wand ready when they'd arrived in the graveyard. Mr Diggory sobbed throughout, Mrs Diggory seemed beyond tears.

They both thanked him, even when he tried to give them the gold that Fudge had thrown at him, that Cedric should have won.

They didn't take it though.

--//

Dumbledore didn't say anything of the help he'd got bringing Cedric's body back, just that he risked his own life to bring him back to Hogwarts, Harry was thankful of that.

Avoiding Hermione and Ron's questions was hard enough.

--//

"Bye Harry." Hermione kissed him on the cheek. "And some time you're going to explain _everything _to me."

Harry looked back at his friends as he followed Uncle Vernon to the car.

_What would come, would come…and he would have to meet it when it did._

--//

_For the Ninth Doctor, Rose and Jack this takes place before __**Boom Town**__._

_For the Master (and this is still the Roger Delgado Master) he meets Harry just after __**Frontier in Space**__._

_The First Task – Dragon sequence. I obviously took some inspiration from the movie. Though pretty much always my source is the book. But for the dragon sequence I wanted to make it much more punchy._

_I probably haven't won too many votes for my Harry and Lisa Greengrass Yule Ball pairing and that's all it is, Harry asks Daphne to the ball, they're not going to suddenly be in the broom closet practicing safe sex charms!_

_I actually was considering between Lisa Turpin and Daphne Greengrass. _

_That's why that section of this chapter started out very ambiguous, and then takes a sharp left turn._

_Also it just seemed to fit in with everything with the Doctor and the Master and various other things. _

_Daphne was the only Slytherin I could remember (and confirm with a full name and didn't end up killing anyone in the long run)._

_For the scenes where the contestant's families come to Hogwarts I was tempted to have a 'Doctor moment' or a 'Master moment' in there. But there was no real way of including them without detracting from the stuff between Amos Diggory and Harry and the Weasleys and Harry. I considered briefly as being the Master, but it would have thrown off the whole scene, so it didn't make it in._

_The battle with Voldemort I obviously altered to make it like the first task more punchy and to manipulate it slightly to have Harry in a different position than it occurs in Goblet of Fire. _

_This has to be one of my longest chapters ever, 21,000 words or so._

_Deleted section_

_This was sequence I started was the morning after the Yule Ball, but it was all a bit silly and fluffy._

Harry sat in the common room looking around, usually Boxing Day was quiet and laid back. Not this year, Hermione, Ron and himself were sitting in the chairs around the fire, Hermione and Ron seemed to have reached an unspoken agreement over their argument. Though the fallout from his choice of partner was lingering, rather like nuclear radiation.

"This is awkward."

"So how'd you do it mate, Greengrass." Fred whistled, Harry turned around, Fred was sitting on the back on his chair.

"And here was us thinking you'd grab one of Ron's girls." Said George from the other side of his chair. It was rather like having the saint and the sinner sitting on his shoulder, except these two were both in red and were both grinning, he could tell this without completely craning around, he just _knew_ it would be what they would be doing.

"Harry! A Slytherin!" Ron whined at him.

"Aww can't you two just kiss and make up, we've got a poll running!" Fred laughed.

"We covered this last night during your" Harry looked between Ron and Hermione "Altercation."

"An actual kiss or a metaphorical one?" Harry asked the twins.

"5:1 you'll make up, 1000:1 that you'll actually kiss and 5000:1 if more than five people see you."

Ron was making a gagging noise.

Harry was staring into space.

"So do I put a bet on myself now and then give him a snog?" He asked the twins.

"Harry!" Ron squeaked.

_Thanks for reading._


	8. Chapter 8

--

**Chapter 08**

Harry wondered the corridors of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, it was relatively late in the evening but he couldn't sleep, despite the last two days of enforced cleaning by Mrs Weasley (it had just felt like being back at the Dursleys, swap Vim for Professor Tweety's miracle cleaning solution and it was just the same). Only back at the Dursleys he was under a blackout of information for so called 'security' reasons. Here he knew there was information to be had, but he was 'too young' to know all of it. If they knew some of the things he'd been through, some of the things he'd experienced.

Harry unconsciously ran a hand over his torso where the scars remained, the Doctor had said he'd be left with scars from the variety of injuries that he'd sustained battling Voldemort. The price of living Harry had secretly thought, a multitude of scars to add to that all too famous one he'd got from Voldemort as a child.

Ron and Hermione didn't know about the various scars that littered his chest, though he was sure Ron had seen some of the scars on his back when he was changing back at Hogwarts and now that he was in Grimmauld Place, though he hadn't commented.

Harry wondered if Ron had really gotten over his desire to be the centre of attention, to be the one who got tortured in the grave yard and witness to a friend being murdered before his eyes.

Harry turned down another corridor of the dimly lit house, not really aiming for anywhere in particular, just letting his mind wander.

Sirius had been in and out and around the house, but sometimes he seemed uneasy with being around Harry.

Knowing that he'd endured such a battle against Voldemort and being rescued 'magically' (not literally) from near death seemed to leave Sirius slightly uncomfortable about the whole thing, that Harry had secrets that he wasn't willing to tell his godfather.

It wasn't that he wasn't willing to tell him everything it was just…

Harry shook his head, _he_ didn't trust Sirius. There were times when Sirius _was_ completely normal, but then sometimes he looked into his eyes, and they weren't the calm or excited eyes, they were eyes of a man half crazed with the world. Harry couldn't blame him, 13 years in Azkaban of a crime he didn't commit.

He'd tried to talk to Sirius about it, but he hadn't wanted any of it, preferring to divert the conversation away to other things and most of the time it was okay, _most_ of the time it was fun to talk about the past about pranks he, his father and Remus pulled at Hogwarts, that was fine.

Then there were other times when Sirius would be constantly nagging him to tell him more about the mysterious man who had rescued him.

Ron at least had known to leave it be, he really hoped that last year's events had shocked him into maturity, if not Harry thought to himself he'd need to come up with another shocking event to blast Ron with again, perhaps an event equivalent of electrodes on the nipples.

Hermione on the other hand had been, not so much pestering him, but he knew she wanted answers and she knew that he knew that she wasn't going to leave him alone until she got them.

At least they knew the full extent of his encounter with the Dementors, he'd had to recount that numerous times in the lead up to his court room appearance.

Speaking of…Harry thought to himself as he saw Hermione step around the corner of the corner he was walking down, a dusty tome in her hand.

"Pilfering Black family secrets Hermione? How very unlike you."

Hermione jumped. "Harry I…I didn't recognise your parlance."

Harry raised an eyebrow as she managed to shift the large book behind her back and casually lean against the wall.

"So, Harry _when_ are you going to enlighten me about your mysterious rescue?"

"My mysterious rescue which I already told you was a _secret_?"

Hermione gave him a look. "You did say you'd tell me everything."

Harry frowned. "No. You _told_ me that _one _day I would tell you everything."

Hermione smiled innocently. "Are you sure?"

"Very. Show me the book."

"Or what you'll _mesmerize _me?" She asked coolly.

Harry shrugged. "Show me and if I get out of the court with my balls intact I'll tell you a few things."

Hermione pulled a face. "Harry do you have to be so crude?" Harry nodded with a silly grin.

"Fine." Hermione said bringing the book back around and showing him.

Harry flipped through it, the script on the cover was very tightly written in leather rendering it almost unreadable.

"You're nicking a book on Merlin?"

"Not everything in here is dark Harry, _despite_ what Mrs Weasley and Sirius keep saying and while this might look _dark_" She paused and then mumbled. "And was in a dark section of the reading room" She returned to her normal tone of voice. "It's a very interesting history that _Hogwarts: A History_ simply doesn't cover. Did you know there are very few books about the history of magic as detailed as this."

"Funny and yet we both take History of Magic together and never really learn anything." Harry commented. "I suppose it's what they say, history is just one person's _version_ of events, the only way to know history is to experience it."

"Who said that?" She asked.

Harry handed her the book back and continued down the corridor, his answer echoing roughly off the wood paneled walls. "Probably a time traveller."

--//

Harry came out of the court room wanting to severely maim Fudge and Delores Umbridge.

Okay he didn't expect it to be a cake walk, but he did not expect to be in a full sized court room, especially considering the two letters he received,

--//

Ace looked at the scanner, a frown forming on her face, it looked like a dim dingy old house.

"Professor!"

"Yes Ace what is it?"

"I thought you'd done your bit with old houses and my childhood."

"Ah! I see we've arrived." He patted the console. "Yes, exactly where I wanted, excellent."

Ace breathed in slowly. "I thought you were done with taking me to old creepy houses."

"This isn't Gabriel Chase Ace." He said fixing her with those cool eyes of truth and honesty that she valued from him so much.

"Then where are we, and when?"

"It's the 13th of August 1995, we are in London."

"In a dirty old house."

"Yes, number 12 Grimmauld Place to be precise." He handed Ace something it looked like a small rod with a jewel on top.

"What's this?" She shook it.

"Ace! Be gentle, it's a portable shield generator, a product of the Tzun Confederation's war factories during their years long war with the Vardans."

"Why do I need it in an old house in London?"

"Because we're here to see someone, and others who may be in the house might not respond well."

"To us poking our noses in Professor?" She asked eagerly. "Hasn't stopped you before."

"Yes Ace well these people may be more 'trigger happy' than even the _military_. It sometimes pays to be cautious." He said placing a few more items into his pockets. Ace nodded and went to her back pack and looked at it and then to the Doctor who was making himself busy checking the TARDIS' instruments.

She stuffed a dozen or so cans of Nitro-9 into various pockets of her jacket pockets, it wouldn't hurt to be prepared, just in case it all went 'pear shaped' as Shreena used to say, Ace briefly wondered to herself what had happened to her, they were after all pretty close to her time, before the time storm.

As she stood up she noticed somehow there was a second pack sitting next to hers, it was one of those military packs that Gilmore's cronies had when they'd been in London.

"Bring that with you will you Ace?" The Doctor called to her as he stepped out the TARDIS doors.

"So who're we here to see Professor?" She asked as she stepped out of the TARDIS, pulling the pack onto her back, it was odd, it felt like it had some weight to it, without really feeling like it weighed much as all.

"Not so loud Ace!" The Doctor hissed, cringing in the darkened room.

"Who are we here to see." She whispered again. It really was very dark in here, she looked around and up for a light switch or a light bulb and found neither.

"What sorta house is this with no lights?"

"A very old house."

"And this bloke lives here does he?"

"He's staying here, I wanted a word with him before he returns…" The Doctor mumbled off.

"Returns where?"

"He's a friend of mine Ace, a very…a very good friend of mine."

"Didn't know you had friends Professor." She jabbed him lightly in the side. "I thought you just had enemies."

"Please Ace, even someone like me has a few people who don't want my head on a pike." He said lightly, at least Ace thought it was lightly. "Now, do be quiet Ace, we have some sneaking around to do, lest we wake the natives." He said opening the door, cringing slightly as it creaked allowing the flickering light of candles illuminate the room that they were in and the TARDIS, standing seemingly at home in the dust and darkness.

Harry walked through the corridors after arising very quickly. He wasn't sure what time it was, late in the night and he'd actually been sleeping, well dozing was probably more accurate, Ron had been _sleeping_.

In his dozing state he'd felt it more than heard it, the vibration through the ceiling and floor, the noise, the noise of a TARDIS materializing, it's long drawn out groaning as it forced itself into reality, out of the vortex and into regular space time.

In theory it could only one of two people, though also in another theory there were other Time Lords, maybe. The whole Time War thing was confusing enough, he'd asked the Doctor briefly about it, how he'd been able to meet the Magister earlier in the year (not that he mentioned his name), the Doctor had mumbled something and then just shrugged and said something about the general 'mish mash of time and its timey-wimey interrelatedness of the universe'. Which was absolutely no help, he'd decided to not think about it, he'd continue to meet his extra-temporal friends and whatever had happened in their personal timeline, was what had happened. He was a relatively fixed point in the universe (except for all that time turnering a year ago) so it shouldn't in theory worry him, especially if their Time War occurred in the relative future.

"I wonder if Stephen Hawking would be up for a chat about temporal theory."

"I don't think he would understand the rrrelative dimensions of it Mr Poterr." Someone said down at the end of the corridor, obscured by darkness.

"Or I can just talk to myself, people already think I'm made."

"Talking to yourself isn't mad, I do it all the time, and I'm perfectly fine." A man walking along with a red handled umbrella walked out of the gloom, beside him a girl who was looking around with a slight scowl on her face, Harry wasn't sure why she was scowling.

"Doctor?"

"Harry, good to see you, you recognise me then?" The hugged each other.

"This your friend Professor?"

"Professor?" Harry raised an eyebrow at him.

"Ace I would like you to meet someone I've known for" He looked at Harry. "What feels like a lot of my life."

"And mine." Harry smiled offering his hand. "Harry Potter."

"Ace. So how'd you know the Professor."

"Perhaps not here, it's night if you didn't know." Harry said, just becoming aware they were standing in a corridor at night in the HQ of the Order of the Phoenix.

"I know Harry, this is the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, relatively speaking it is night of course. Through here I think." He said opening a door he hadn't realised was beside them. They stepped into a small room that seemed to have nothing more than a few chairs and tables and a fireplace.

The Doctor reached into his pocket and withdrew a box of matches lighting one and lighting the fire. "Everlasting matches, supremely useful. Pity the company also created the infinity battery."

"Why's that bad Professor?" Ace asked as she pulled off the backpack the Professor had asked her to bring and flopped into one of the chairs.

"At a guess the probably went out of business."

"Precisely Harry." The Doctor smiled.

"You what?"

"A company that produces everlasting matches and something called the 'infinity battery' would most likely never have repeat customers."

"Oh right."

"A line of deductive reasoning followed to its natural conclusion." The Doctor said as he grabbed the bag and started to remove all manner of odd things, despite however many regenerations it had been for the Doctor Harry still recognised that look of glee on his face as he started to bring all manner of foodstuffs out of the bag dazzling, or at least mildly surprising Ace.

"Nothing like a midnight snack to prepare you for the day ahead."

"Sleep's also good." Ace muttered.

"Sleep is for…" The Doctor began but Harry interjected. "Tortoises."

"Chelonians!" The Doctor smiled mysteriously at him.

"So Harry, tell me about your past year." The Doctor asked as he poured some tea out of a thermos and handed him a cup, Harry settled into the chair as Ace found some sandwiches the Doctor had laid out.

Harry shook his head, just marveling at the ludicrousness of all this.

The Doctor looked completely at ease though.

"Don't you know?"

"The memory, even at my age sometimes plays tricks on you, dates muddled, forgotten."

"The other day he forgot about the world ending." Ace said as she finished chewing a sandwich.

"Really, the world, this one I take it." Harry asked enjoying the Doctor being a little bit uncomfortable.

"Yeah." Ace said with an equal amount of enjoyment.

"Do tell." Harry said with a grin settling back into his chair.

"Nemesis." Harry murmured to himself, a living metal, would certainly be something useful in a war.

"Yes, now Harry what have you got up to in this year's past?" The Doctor asked, a brogue of sorts present in his voice.

"Where to start?" Harry said with a sigh, leaning back into his chair.

"The beginning." Ace said with a grin, the Doctor looked at her carefully and she stopped almost immediately.

Harry told the Doctor (and Ace) almost everything of the previous year, skipping over the portions where he'd met the Doctor, just in case. He remained vague about meeting the Magister, all the Doctor did was frown slightly but didn't say anything.

Harry watched the Doctor lean back into his chair in deep thought.

"A most disturbing turn of events." That same light Scottish brogue coming through again through the Rs.

"Disturbing, it's right insane professor, making kids go through all that and I thought my school was bad. Though I sorted them." She grinned. The Doctor remained silent in thought.

"How's that?" Harry asked curiously.

"Blew up the art building!" She grinned.

"You blew it up!" Harry asked in disbelief.

"Yeah. Served em right the bunch of tossers, told 'em it was a 'creative statement', they still expelled me though."

"How?" Harry asked leaning over to her, she glanced at the Doctor who seemed to be thinking to himself.

"There's this explosive…"

Harry listened amazed as Ace talked quietly. Supposedly 'the Professor' didn't like it when she talked about explosives.

"Harry?" The Doctor looked over them, seemingly out of his intense thought. "How did you escape?"

"Sorry?" He looked away from Ace over to the Doctor.

"You said you returned to Hogwarts, but not how you were rescued."

"Do you need to know?"

"It may be important."

Harry shrugged offhandedly to himself. "If you don't know then that's probably the answer."

"What is?" Ace asked looked between them.

"It seems Harry has met one of my future selves, delving into his personal past, very complicated you see," He made a meshing motion with his fingers. "Time travel, and time travellers often move in and out of the time stream, as our reference points are different to those with fixed continuity."

"What so Harry's met a future you before, but it hasn't happened to you yet?"

"So it seems."

"You didn't seem to know what was going to happen."

"Yes." He muttered to himself.

"It's not as though this is the first time it's happened to us though." Harry said trying to lighten the mood.

"What he's done this before? For the 'powerful Time Lord' you are Professor you're not all that good at keeping time, the Daleks in '63 London, Nemesis any more dangerous things we should be dropping in on, just in case the world ends?"

"The world will end without any interference from me, time is always moving, always changing."

"That's what you and I do isn't it Professor, move and change time, do good?"

The Doctor looked at them, Harry thought he saw an expression very momentarily pass across his face. "Yes Ace."

"Now Harry, I have some gifts, items you may find useful for the year ahead."

The Doctor took a hold of the hold army bag and began removing various items from it explaining each of its purposes.

"Sounds like he's going to be fightin' a war Professor."

"At least a battle." He muttered. "Harry this one is important." He said holding up the black device that looked a little bit like a spiderand a long flat paddle fastened to the side which had a row of black buttons on it. "Use this for psychic damage."

"You sound like you know this is going to happen. Isn't that against one of the laws?" Harry asked looking at the Doctor, the Doctor's features darkened for a moment.

"At times laws and rules need to be broken. Those with power are often the worst people to have it and hold onto it with all their will and might."

"You mean Voldemort."

"Perhaps. We all have a universe of terrors to face." Harry looked up as Ace twisted to stare at the Doctor quickly with an odd look on her face.

The Doctor looked away, re-packing the back and then stood up, Harry stood with him as the Doctor started patting down his pockets and then removed a long gold rod, which ended in a solid metal suction cup arrangement. "Ah yes, something of a memory of our encounter in London with the Daleks." He handed it to Harry.

Harry ran his hands over it, it almost tingled, or it could've just been excitement.

"This is a Dalek's." He said almost questioning.

"Yes, very useful, this faction of Daleks used it as an interface with their systems, I utilised it for my own purposes."

"What was that, you never finished telling me."

"Ace you can tell the story, I need to see to somethings." The Doctor said turning to the door.

"Anything I can help with Doctor?"

"No, just something from the future that the past might be useful in knowing," He said then muttered seemingly to himself. "ghosts of the future…" Then he stepped out of the room.

"Does he always do that?"

"You know him well? Doesn't he always do stuff like that?" Ace jerked her head towards the door.

"Not usually." Harry said leaning over to pour more tea.

"So, Daleks." He rubbed his hands together.

"You're really into all this stuff, his adventures he has." Then she looked at him. "You _know_ him."

"Elements of him, yes." Ace just nodded.

"Right old place, London in the 60s, and he's there luring Daleks in to get this old Time Lord device…"

The 'Hand of Omega'…Harry listened amazed, he was sure the Doctor, when he first met him had said something about his people customizing stars or something along those lines. He knew Omega was a hero of the Doctor's, despite him being a little on the mad side according to the Doctor one time, when he'd met his past two selves.

But…destroying Skaro. That made chills run down his spine.

The Doctor he knew in the past…the one who had sweated over having the right to destroy them at their creation, who had handed Davros over to the humans for trial rather than killing him, or his earlier incarnations, he who had allowed the Daleks to destroy their city with the human factor or frozen a huge army of Daleks on Spiridon…

But then again there was the Doctor he'd just met, the man so moody, so wound up and then again, finding out about the Time War, about his loss. He wondered if this could be revenge, the Doctor now, this incarnation had not encountered him before, and he hadn't mentioned any time war.

But as Harry worked it through, according to Ace the Doctor had still given Davros a choice, even though it sounded like it was a trick, more than a choice, playing on Davros' own megalomania.

It must have been a bit of a gamble, all (assumedly) Davros would have needed to do was scan the Hand of Omega to discover the Doctor's ruse.

Though from how the Doctor had described him in the past something must have happened to Davros in the time between the Daleks attempting to exterminate him and whenever this happened, in the past, but they time travelled to get there…

Time travel was confusing, he'd experienced it and it was still confusing, having friends who time travelled and all.

"You're quiet." Ace observed.

"Just thinking. You know he's met the Daleks before?"

"Yeah, he explained it all, right nasty things."

"Yeah."

"He was well mad, this Davros bloke. The Doctor talked the other Dalek to death."

"Talked it…to death?" Harry repeated as Ace went onto explain.

If the destruction of Skaro didn't give him chills this did, just by talking to it, speaking with it on the battlefield so to speak, lead it to its own destruction.

"Here." Ace was pulling canisters out of her pockets. "Sounds as though the Professor thinks you're going into battle or something, this is right useful, my own brew – Nitro 9." Ace grinned.

Harry eyed canisters as he placed them within the pack. According to Ace they were fine and stable until you pulled the pin on the timer "Pretty much 10 seconds…maybe a bit less, still working on that."

Just as he was refastening the straps the Doctor walked in carrying a heavy old book.

"Time to leave Ace, Harry."

"What's the book Professor?"

"Something for the future." He said looking at Ace giving her a look of no argument.

"Fine, don't tell me." She crossed her arms.

Harry picked up the bag, it wasn't all that heavy, considering what was inside it, but there was enough weight to it to know you had something in there.

As he bent down he turned his head straining in the light to read the cursive script it had a few words on the title, the only one he could make out was _Timewyrm_.

"I'll walk you back to the TARDIS then." Harry said opening the door for them and looking down the corridor, for a brief second he thought he saw something, but looking again it was just the flickering in the candle light.

Inside the room the Doctor disappeared quickly into the TARDIS before returning to the room, sans book.

"Now, Harry look after yourself this year and be careful."

"You say that all the time." The Doctor hugged him, patting him on the back.

"Do you ever listen?" He asked.

"Do you?" Harry countered.

"Every large decision creates ripples, empires crumble, events change, people change, I change…" He said seemingly to himself. Harry looked over to Ace who shrugged and nodded, seemingly this was something the Doctor did more than once.

"So will I see you again?"

"Haven't you already?" The Doctor asked.

"Well I'm going to try to see you again Harry, even if this is the future or whatever the Professor says." She gave him a one armed hug.

"Come on Professor." She winked at Harry as she went into the TARDIS leaving the Doctor and Harry standing outside.

"Look after yourself Doctor." Harry said seriously to the Time Lord.

"I will, and you Harry." He smiled before walking into the TARDIS, the door shut a moment later.

Harry smiled to himself as the TARDIS groaned its way away, until he was alone in the darkened room.

Walking outside Harry looked around.

"I'm not the only one who could have been in Slytherin it seems." He said to the empty corridor in a low voice.

"Dust, it gets everywhere, especially in an old house like this, I knew to drag my feet when walking around, covers up the footprints as long as you're the last one in the line. You've been creeping around, sneaking on tippy toes, ignoring the creeks in floor, but not the humble dust." Harry said seemingly to himself as he ran his fingers down a wall, seemingly to illustrate to himself the level of dust there was around here.

"I must say considering how observant you were last year with Rita you missed that I'm also quite an observant person. Though last year I think you'll give me that I had a bit on my mind." Harry paused for several seconds. "Hermione."

Harry waited for several moments.

Then the woman herself stepped out of an alcove.

"How did you know it was me, it could have been anyone…sneaking around at night."

"The soap you use."

"My choice of soap gave me away." She deadpanned.

"Normal, regular soap, you and I are the only ones, everyone else uses some other stuff."

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "That other stuff awful Harry."

"Why don't we discuss it in the morning." Harry tried to gently guide Hermione away.

"Don't you go all casual on me Harry Potter."

Harry sighed. "No, I didn't think that would work."

"And don't you try to mesmerize me or whatever it is you do."

Damn…

"Fine. I think though we should continue our discussion somewhere else."

"In the room you were before?" Harry just nodded slowly as Hermione lead the way back to the room he, Ace and the Doctor had been in.

Harry sat back down into his chair and removed the flask of tea from his bag, there was still a clean cup there, and his that he'd left, he poured both himself and Hermione a cup. She eyed him as he did so.

"If this is to be an inquisition I may as well have a cup of tea, and one to share with my Inquisitor."

"A bit melodramatic Harry." Hermione said taking the cup. Harry smiled.

"I did just catch you _spying_ on me, I think melodrama is to be called for." Harry said leaning back into the chair, warming his hands with the cup.

"You're not angry Harry?" Hermione asked with some tension in her voice, eyeing him worriedly.

"What's done is done, I didn't know you were so curious about me."

"Oh Harry…I'm sorry I didn't come _looking_ for you."

"I'm sensing a 'but' coming."

Hermione fidgeted in her chair. Harry blew the steam over his cup eyeing her, waiting, a curious expression on his face.

"Oh fine, I was just leaving the library when that short man came in."

"But rather than alert the order you followed him, what were you doing up at this time anyway, even _I_ was getting some rest."

Hermione gave him a look. "I heard that noise, that same noise from when you arrived _mysteriously_. Happy now Harry? But I did decide to go to the library."

"_Not_ investigate the noise? I thought you had more curiosity than that." Harry said in a slightly disappointed tone. Hermione let out a gruff sigh.

"Honestly Harry you're annoyed that I followed your meeting and then you're disappointed that I _didn't _investigate the odd noise!"

Harry smiled at her. "Why of course, if you're really that dedicated to uncovering my secrets I could only hope that you're thorough in your pursuits, I'd hate to be uncovered by a part time sleuth."

"I hardly think of myself as Nancy Drew." Hermione commented taking a sip of her tea, wincing at its heat.

"Miss Marple then?" Harry queried, Hermione glared at him.

"Well you now have you suspect in a room, you can present your case and point the finger, though it's a little pointless as I'm the only one holding the proverbial smoking gun" Harry paused and then muttered "or deodorant can." He smiled to himself.

Hermione just blinked at him for a moment before setting down her tea cup.

"That man, he took one of the old books from the history section of the library."

Harry didn't say anything, he'd seen the Doctor with the book and had extrapolated that, but he didn't have any further information.

Hermione looked at him. "Well?"

"That's an observation, of events I clearly wasn't there to see Hermione. Unless I was a hidden staircase or I was another body in the library that you didn't see, perhaps I followed you?" He asked curiously with a slight smirk.

Hermione stared at him.

"Fine, who was he, what was he doing here, how is he related to that other man who rescued you?"

"He's a friend. He came to chat." Harry paused. "They're both my friends, I've known them for some time."

"That's what you said before Harry, I want a real answer or"

"Or?" Harry cut her off.

"Or…I'll, I'll tell the Order and Dumbledore."

"That I had a mysterious guest, in the night, who left no trace of his presence lest a cup of tea and one missing book, from a library that you've been pilfering for books?"

"Touché." Hermione raised her cup. "Fine, how did he come and go?"

Harry shrugged. "_How_ do wizards come and go?"

"What do you mean Harry?"

"Do you understand the underlying process of portkeys? Just because we've both experienced it doesn't mean we know how it does what it does." Harry looked at her as she began to open her mouth. "And don't say magic. Or I'll give a similar answer to your further questions."

"Fine. You're not making this easy for me."

"Maybe not, you're the one who came in here with mystery on the menu, it's not my fault all there is in the kitchen but spam."

Hermione screwed up her face. "I hate spam."

"But I do want answers Harry, _how_ were you rescued…from the graveyard."

Harry leaned back into the chair. "Can you accept for now that my friend has a craft that can land in any given place without hindrance without asking me how it functions or any background of it?"

Hermione stopped for a second and then nodded.

"Can you also accept that I've known him longer than anyone at Hogwarts, and that I won't spill all my secrets, even if you follow me everywhere?"

Hermione nodded again.

"Fine. My friend gave me a device that I could use should I get into a dire situation, my confrontation with Voldemort was one such situation." He paused and then added in a much darker tone. "I certainly wasn't getting help from anywhere in the wizarding world _or_ the castle." Harry mentally added that if the Doctor hadn't come he quite possibly would have suffocated on his own fluids or bled out.

"But…that short man wasn't the same person as last year, or the man who visited you at the Weasleys."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Ron told me about your other friend and a similar noise that we heard last year."

"But all apparition sounds the same, you wouldn't presume that all wizards are the same just because they sound the same." Except in this instance the analogy is actually true.

Hermione remained silent for a moment, thinking.

"Is your friend a time traveller?" Harry would have dropped his cup if he'd been holding it, instead he maintained a neutral expression, surprising facts should merely be taken on board and evaluated you should keep in full control the Magister always said of the situation, even if meddling Doctors pop up in the middle.

"That's an odd conclusion to jump to." He said calmly.

"But you were worried about my time turner use two years ago."

"So your response to my concern is that a friend of mine is a time traveller?" He asked incredulously.

Hermione shook her head. "No, of course it's silly."

Harry remained silent.

"So is this inquisition at an end, or do you have further questions or should I just break out the guillotine?"

"You're not making this very easy Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, Harry smiled.

"No, but then if it were easy to get information we would have no need for interrogators, or _torture_." Hermione's eyes widened and then she looked at him.

"What _did_ happen at the graveyard Harry, really?" She implored.

"And you'll leave this matter to rest?"

Hermione let out a breath of air. "For now."

"Do you _really_ want to know Hermione, really want to know how I held my bloodied organs in with a spare hand whilst my nerves were fried by the Cruciatus and tried to come up with a counter with the other?" Harry asked watching her reaction carefully. She shrank into her chair.

"…no." Hermione muttered after a moment.

"Some scars need not be shared in such intimate detail Hermione, I have already had Dumbledore _request_ a blow by blow description of events, my engagement with Voldemort has nothing to do with the Do" Harry stopped himself. "With my friend."

"Except that he rescued you, when the headmaster didn't." She reasoned looking at him.

"He does that, the saving people in the nick of time thing." Harry commented.

"This is very nice tea Harry." Hermione finally commented, breaking the silence that had endured for sometime.

"I will take the lack of a question as the end of this inquisition Hermione."

"But…" Harry looked at her.

"Fine Harry."

"Good."

"For now."

Harry sighed. He'd told her more than he'd really wanted to, but he wasn't likely to come right out and tell her _everything_.

--//

Harry sat on his bed a little perturbed by the day's events. He wasn't all that upset that he hadn't been made prefect, considering the year in year out convention of people trying to kill him, and the Doctor's ominous suggestions for the year ahead it seemed that this year would be like every other. Danger, disaster and general frantic events.

Considering the events of the previous years he didn't need a badge for his troubles, neither that Doctor nor the Magister wanted some material indicator of their deeds, and he felt pretty much the same.

He would have been lying to himself if he wasn't mildly disappointed that he didn't have honour and the _power_ that came with being a prefect, but he didn't want that power that made him a stuffy bureaucrat like Percy, policing the corridors of Hogwarts. He had enough things to take up his time and enough power of his own for now.

It was though a little odd, and he wondered disheartening for Ron seeing everyone's reactions to him getting the prefectship rather than Harry (or anyone aside from Ron?). Everyone from Hermione through the twins to Mrs Weasley had been surprised by Ron being chosen as prefect. Though Ron seemed to have handled it in a remarkably subdued manner, certainly much more mature than how Harry imagined he would have behaved even a year ago. Maybe he really had some sense of maturity.

--//

Harry sat on his bed, images flashing through in his head of the forms the Boggart had taken. Coming face to face with his own body.

He tried to look on the bright side, _his_ dead body didn't look half as bad as he imagined it would, that image was still locked in his mind when he chanced upon looking down at his bloodied body whilst fighting Voldemort in the graveyard, the biting sharp pain he'd felt as he dug his nails into his flesh, holding his organs into his body as he fought. Those scars were present, though lighter compared to the large gashes made by the slicing curses (or possibly one of the impacts of the headstones when he'd been flung into them or when they'd collapsed on top of him, or alternatively when Voldemort had flung bits of them at him, as Martha attested when she showed him the kidney dish and the chunks of stone she'd removed from his insides).

--//

Harry looked down at the dog that was Sirius, he was slightly worried about him, but it would only be dangerous if anyone knew that Sirius was a black dog and that he was hanging out with the Order.

--//

Harry left Hermione and Ron to go into Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop, he needed breath the cool air outside, it had _trying_ meeting those who wanted to learn _real_ defence. He had been well aware how close his temper had been bubbling to near the surface throughout his 'conversation' with Zacharias Smith he had been tempted to explain to them the particular sensation that was suffocating on your own fluids.

He really was starting to appreciate how difficult it must be for the Doctor to arrive somewhere and begin to help the natives to defeat their oppressors.

Harry breathed in a deep breath of the cool village air for once untainted by the fires that often gave the village a rich smell of firewood or occasionally of coal and looked around the village, hoping not to see Cho. She had been acting rather oddly, almost flirtatiously around him, especially after their very casual conversation in the owlery.

Harry couldn't really fathom where this recent attraction had come from, well aside from Quidditch and Cedric. Harry thought it was a little odd, if she was pursuing him, and if she was pursuing _him_ in particular because he had shared in her boyfriend's demise then that would be a little weird. _Especially_ if that was the reason she was pursuing him, he could understand if she wanted to have a chat with him about Cedric but he lingering looks and everything…

Harry blinked as he turned, looking around the village, he had almost missed it the first time in his wondering thoughts.

There was an old stone obelisk, with what looked like water fountains on the side, it looked like it completely belonged in Hogsmeade. Except it didn't, he didn't remember it being there on any of his previous visits.

Yet everyone seemed to be missing it, walking straight past it, or even around it and not stopping to investigate this monument which seemed to have dropped out of nowhere.

Even now as he looked at it…it was though his vision slid away at an angle, he could see it in the window reflections and if he forced himself (which was what he was doing at the moment) as he walked towards it he _knew_ it was there.

Looking at it as he was standing in front of it it was still giving off the really weird vibe that _made_ him want to look elsewhere.

It was a bit like a notice me not charm, though those were usually counteracted once you _really_ knew the object was there, but this…kept on affecting him.

Harry reached out his hand to touch it, his other gripping his wand, just in case.

It had the same barely there vibration of a TARDIS. But the Magister's and the Doctor's (in theory) could blend in with their surroundings, their Chameleon Circuits would in theory allow them to blend in and not be noticed, but this took it to a whole new level, this wasn't just changing its appearance it was altering how he perceived it, slightly.

Harry felt a presence behind him, he gripped his wand slightly tighter, but didn't turn around. "Magister?" he asked in a level tone. A voice chuckled, amused behind him.

"Mr Potter." Harry turned around carefully.

"Magister." Harry said again smiling.

"Come on Mr Potter, let us get inside away from the rabble." He cast a glance around the Village.

Harry left the last of his scars for last, he had tried and failed to stop Umbridge from making his use the quill and was beginning to think along more drastic methods. But he had attempted to hypnotise her but her uptight annoying eyes seemed to be impervious to them.

"Bloody minded bureaucrats, usually some of the easiest to bend to your will Mr Potter. Show me your hand." He almost demanded, Harry reached across the distance between them, they were sitting in the console room of Magister's TARDIS, having tea no less. The Magister took Harry's hand rather gently in his gloved hands, though a look on his face showed a particularly darkening expression when he let go he was mumbling to himself about 'despicable witches' or something.

He left the room a moment later, returning around 10 minutes later with two black boxes. Seemingly it was the Magister's favoured colour scheme, though that said according to those who travelled with the Doctor it was generally white inside the TARDIS, except the odd yellow/brown/coral sort of texture when he'd been within it last.

The Master opened the first box and picked up with a pair of large tongs a thing that looked like a large slug, with scales.

"Your hand Harry."

Harry offered it, gingerly and then asked as Magister placed the slug thing on his hand, it made a disturbing suckling noise as it attached itself to his hand. "What is it?" He asked trying not to cringe.

"A genetically engineered lifeform, it will heal and analyse your scars and telepathically transmit its findings to its mate."

Harry made a puzzled queried expression to him. That suggested 'and then what?'

"Its mate will morph into a symbiotic connection and pass sideways through the dimensions rendering it almost intangible." The Master paused. "And especially for the woman Umbridge it maintains an element of telepathic feedback, when it is bombarded by the elements of energy, the spell of the quill will feedback to her."

"You mean it'll stay on my hand."

"Yes and should she inflict any harm against you, directly or indirectly it will feed it back in a loop harming her. A rather interesting method of retribution wouldn't you say Mr Potter?"

Harry slumped back slightly, it was, a little complicated to get his head around, though he'd worked out his time travel adventure and meeting the Doctor in a random order, this was simple, relatively. It still meant that he'd have something sitting on his hand, even if it was in another dimension.

"What were these used for?" He asked randomly.

"They were created by the genetic smiths of Salostopus, outlawed in the seven galaxies they were a creative method of battle armour." Magister said though mumbled to himself "And a total dead end, pathetic fool…."

Harry looked at the flesh coloured thing that didn't at all look like the other slug thing as the Magister placed it on his (now scar free hand), it seemed to shudder and his hand seemed to twist as it shifted slightly in the dimensions.

Running his hand over his hand he couldn't feel anything different, though he was _sure_ that he could feel _something_.

"How do I get it off?"

"It will last a year, maybe less if your enemies are particularly vicious." The Magister said an odd quirky of a smile on his face.

Harry looked back at the Magister's TARDIS as it disappeared, supposedly he was had been mucking around with a _perception filter_ and enhancing it, which was what gave his TARDIS such the weird vibe.

As the Magister's TARDIS finished completely dematerializing Harry saw Hermione and Ron looking around and then Hermione's eyes widened and she pointed at him and they came rushing over.

"Harry! Where were you? We've been looking forever."

"Hey mate, it was about 10 minutes Hermione." Ron tried to add, smiling at her.

"But, you said you were going to wait outside Harry, I was worried!"

"I said I was going to have a _wander_ outside. I don't think Voldemort's going to jump out of one of the houses and attack us, at least I hope not." Ron still twitched at mention of Voldemort's name.

"But…but…you don't have your Invisibility Cloak do you?"

Harry shook his head. "Why?" He asked curiously.

"It's just…didn't you see Ron?"

"What?"

"Harry wasn't standing here and then…then he was."

"Rubbish, we were looking all around here, Harry likes to wander around, 'specially after Cho was making all gooey eyes at you mate." Ron teased.

Harry chuckled, idly scratching his scar free hand.

"I think it's just _weird_ that she's doing that mate." He said to Ron. "Lets head back up to the castle." He said to Hermione who was looking at a patch on the ground curiously before shaking her head and went to follow them.

--//

"It's probably full of Nargles." He said trying to shatter the mood Cho was creating, it was almost as though it was permeating outwards from her flowing robes.

He didn't used to think of her robes as flowing. Snape's maybe, just not in the way Cho was doing it.

He blinked twice now having an image of Snape and Cho in his mind.

Had it suddenly gotten very hot in the room…?

"What are Nargles?"

"Something Luna mentioned."

"Loony Luna?" She asked tossing her hair over her shoulder.

How had they gone from having a calm, quiet even fun conversation about Cedric to this? Harry wondered looking around for an escape route, he could stun her, that could work.

It might also be a little bit rude.

"I _really_ like you Harry."

Maybe if he incinerated the mistletoe (probably kill the Nargles as well) he could get out of this.

Then she kissed him, he was stunned for a second and weirdly reminded of the slug that the Magister had used to heal his wounded hand.

Then a moment later Cho broke off the kiss and smiled flicking her hair again over her shoulder and left the room.

"Weird." He muttered to himself and aimed his wand at the mistletoe muttering an _Incendio_ at it as though it had caused all his problems.

_He _had just been trying to be sympathetic, to talk about Cedric to her, he hadn't been looking for her lips, her whole body in fact. There were more important things abound.

Like people trying to maim or kill him for starters, then there were the dreams and everything else.

--//

Harry rubbed his temples, he had more than a headache, quite possibly a migraine. The dreams combined with the Occlumancy, it was like playing mental games against himself with someone poking around inside his head, _at least_ he seemed to be improving, his mental preparation with the Magister over the years seemed to help. Especially with keeping his secrets his own, Snape seemed to have just uncovered things he expected to find, Cedric and other school stuff, though nothing so far about the DA, the Magister, the Doctor or anything like that. It was like double or triple guessing himself and then pretending on top of that.

He needed to get out of the castle this Hogsmeade day just to clear his head, though he'd waited until most of the people had left before departing, Ron and Hermione had left at his insistence. He was just about to leave the castle when a voice spoke to him in a soft low tone.

"Potter."

Harry started to turn around when the voice said "Don't turn around."

"Daphne, long time, you don't write, you don't even hex me in the corridors." He said playfully.

"A word of warning Chang was looking for you." Harry sighed.

"And what does this piece of information cost me?" He asked.

"Nothing. Simpering fools annoy me. _Grief _can only excuse so much."

"And you thought you'd help out?" Harry asked. "How very kind."

"Good day Potter."

"Can I get you something in Hogsmede Daphne, a thank you." There was no answer, Harry turned around and he was alone once again.

"Odd." He muttered to himself.

--//

Peri stuffed her hands into the cloak the Doctor had offered her. She looked around, it looked like any other little English village except.

"Hey Doctor, so where are we this time?"

"This time? This time! My dear Peri, you make it sound as though we are always 'turning up'" He mimicked her accent. "at a variety of locations."

Peri ignored his dig. "It looks like a Salem recreation though like they're trying to do it Dickens style."

"'Do it Dickens style'. Dickens is read, performed, orated! But not _done_ Peri, one of the corner stones of English literature is enjoyed, digested, the English language in all its warmth, diversity and magic." He waved his hands around.

"Magic?" She stared at him.

"Magic Peri is the order of the day, magic!" Peri looked around, whenever they went anywhere people seemed to take almost _offence _to the Doctor's coat, but despite everyone seemingly in black coats they didn't seem to be taking any notice of him or his coat.

The Doctor had walked on ahead, seemingly talking to himself again, or half shouting to himself.

"Hello." Said a male voice _not_ the Doctor's. "How are you?" Peri turned to look, the young man beside her was looked from where he was watching the Doctor with an amused smile on his face to look at her. He had the most amazing green eyes she'd ever seen.

"Hi."

"Harry Potter." He offered his hand smiling looking back at the Doctor.

"Peri."

"I guess that would be the Doctor?" He asked. Peri's eyes widened.

"How'd you know he's the Doctor?" She asked carefully.

"I've met him a couple of times, I'm starting to really recognise him, plus he couldn't be a wizard _even_ in that coat."

Peri was about to ask about what he meant by wizard when the Doctor came stomping back up he didn't seem to notice Harry Potter standing beside them.

"_Were_ you listening to my soliloquy Peri?"

"Doctor, this guy seems to know you."

"Guy, guy? I once knew a Guy, Fawkes his name was, dastardly plot…" Then he looked to her side. "Harry Potter?"

"Hi Doctor."

"How'd you know it was me?" He asked with a grin.

Harry paused for a moment. "Your manner gave you away, plus I've known you for a while Doctor, I'm going to start to recognise you."

"Quite right Harry, you've met my friend Peri here."

"We just met Doctor."

"Of course, of course, well come along, there's a nice inn down a lane here that looks to do an excellent lunch, you can tell me all about the last few years since we saw each other then." The Doctor clapped him on the back and started off at a fast walking pace.

"So you've known the Doctor for a while, you know he can…" Peri trailed off.

"Regenerate, change his appearance?"

"Yeah, he wasn't like this when I met him he was, different."

"How?" Harry asked curiously.

"Blonde, wore a jumper…"

Harry broke in and they both said "Stick of celery on the lapel." Peri looked at him and laughed.

"Yeah, that was him. Saved my life…gave his…" She trailed off as they walked slowly.

"How so?" Harry asked softly.

Peri looked to the younger man and sighed, she'd wanted to talk to _someone_ about this, the Doctor _never_ wanted to talk about his 'previous self' 'the other one, don't you like me?' he'd go on if she tried to broach the subject with him.

So she told him, poured out everything she'd been thinking about since that time on Androzani Major.

It sounded like a horrible thing, spetrox toxemia.

Harry wanted to assure Peri that the Doctor did it all the time, he'd at least done it once, but he was relatively sure that was in the future, so maybe this was the first time he'd done it.

It did show that he really very much cared for Peri, not that he had any doubts the Doctor would let any of his companions die in such a dire situation.

"I've known the Doctor for…a while, he likes to do the saving people thing Peri. He really does care for you."

"Sometimes it doesn't feel like it."

"If he didn't he would have dropped you back home without a by your leave."

"If he could control the TARDIS."

"If? If? If?" The Doctor roared from an alcove he was waiting for them in. "I have perfect control of the TARDIS, what do you mean if?"

"Well it's as though we never turn up where you want us to."

"When?"

"Florana, sparkling water in the seas you said, a botanist's dream you said."

"So?"

"We arrived when there were dinosaurs around and the seas had a low enough pH to pickle anything that went near them!" Peri argued.

"A minor mis-calculation with the relative drift compensators, nothing but a few million years, it was still interesting."

"Except when the TARDIS was eaten and we had to wait around for it to pass through and _all _the time you wouldn't stop complaining to me for wanting to come."

Okay…Harry thought to himself. "How about some lunch Doctor, Peri?" Harry gestured to the small inn he'd never noticed in one of the lanes leading away from Hogsmeade.

"…and then he said, 'Sausage? SAUSAGE!?' and ran out of the room." Harry smiled at Peri who smiled back at him and they both laughed at the Doctor's anecodote, Harry wasn't quite sure why they were laughing though it seemed to be the best thing to say.

"So Harry, tell me what have you been up to?"

"Complicated question Doctor."

"Could pass the um…thank you." He said motioning the butter dish. "Complicated how?" He stared at him, for the briefest moment Harry saw through to the same eyes he always saw in the Doctor.

"You have been getting a tendency of meeting me…randomly."

"Randomly, Randomly? I never…I am a Time Lord Harry, I don't do anything randomly."

"Doctor!" Peri said in a shushing manner as the Doctor's voice rose.

"What Peri?"

"You're shouting."

"I am never, shouting?" He said down, crossing his arms. Harry wondered if the few other diners had heard him over the silencing charms he'd cast quickly.

"What do you mean randomly Harry?" Peri asked calmly curious.

"We've met, well I've met him as I live my life, I haven't time travelled" Harry looked at the Doctor, he didn't say anything. "But the Doctor can and he's met me" Harry paused for a moment thinking. "Out of…randomly throughout his regenerations."

"Of all the cheek Harry, insulting a Time Lord about his abilities to keep time and appointments." Harry wasn't sure but it looked like the Doctor was sulking.

"How do you mean?" Peri asked puzzled.

"The Doctor you were before you regenerated, I met him _before_ I met" Harry stopped again, this was getting needlessly complicated. "Let me try again. I met the one who liked cricket, the one you met first, but then I met the Doctor who he was before that one second, though I'd met his next self first."

Peri nodded for a moment. "So you're saying that you think you might have met a future Doctor" She looked at the Doctor who was munching his way through his third bread roll. "before."

"Yes and I wouldn't want to muck around with the web of time and tell you about your future, or tell you future events that I've already told you in the past, from your own personal future."

"It sounds complicated."

"Complicated is belittling the situation Perpugilliam to the adverse of simplicity."

"Thanks Doctor, that makes me feel so much better." She muttered sarcastically.

"Though we are in a little bit of a pickle…like gherkins in a jar." The Doctor said taking another gulp of his ginger beer. "But I am my own Time Lord, the future is the future to me and I will decide how I live the now, not any future selves, whomever they may be. They are still the future, I am the present!"

"Okay then…" Harry said thinking back to the last time he'd met the Doctor and where he would know events up to.

In describing most of the last two or three years he left out most of the time turner incident (just in case of the web of time getting tangled or something), last year was a little bit more complicated.

"But how did you escape, it sounds horrific."

Harry had a pained expression but looked at the Doctor. "Do you want to know?"

The Doctor looked at him for a moment. "No, no, no. Somethings Peri even I know not to go looking for, somethings may alter my future that I shouldn't be made aware of."

"Like how you snuff it." She said jokingly, but it wasn't for the Doctor, his face went all gloomy and he excused himself to go pay.

"Oh." She said her smile falling, suddenly aware of what she'd said.

Harry had asked Ace casually if she knew, she hadn't been there but 'Mel' a woman who'd travelled with the Doctor before Ace had…supposedly he'd hit his head on the console. Harry had stared at her for at least a minute before he could form a coherent thought.

Though Harry pondered to himself if there was something more to it than that, unless the TARDIS console had some _really_ sharp edges, when he'd been in it it had been round, but there were enough controls on it that you could gouge out your brains of you fell awkwardly…maybe.

But hitting his head. Harry looked over at the Doctor, he didn't think he would appreciate knowing how he came to his end.

"Yes, perhaps not the best thing to bring up with him Peri."

"Yeah." She nodded looking over at the Doctor with look of concern over her face.

"All ready?" The Doctor walked back over a moment later.

"Doctor, I'm sorry I didn't mean to suggest."

"No matter Peri, I have several enemies plotting my own death, you'd think I would get used to those close to me thinking it too." He said flippantly as he opened the door waving them through it out into the cool laneway.

They walked along for a short distance, the Doctor talking about all manner of events and things that were happening out in the universe.

As they walked up a road leading away from Hogwarts he saw the TARDIS sitting on the side of the road.

"Peri if you could…" The Doctor trailed off motioning at the TARDIS.

"What Doctor?" Peri looked at him oddly. "Oh." She turned to Harry. "It was real nice meeting you Harry, hope we can catch up in the some time in the future when he's not" The Doctor made a noise like a hurt kitten. Peri looked at him. "not moaning around."

"I am not moaning."

"Doctor. Harry." She gave him a quick hug. "I'll see you in the TARDIS Doctor."

"Of all the cheek, she makes it sound like it's _her_ TARDIS!" The Doctor said, Harry assumed to himself.

"Now Harry, I don't give a stuff about the 'Web of Time', I am my own Time Lord."

"Yes Doctor, I know." Harry said as the Doctor patted down his pockets, a worried expression on his face before removing a bag with a crescent moon shape stenciled on the side.

"Ah here we go. You and I both know our tendency to accumulate enemies."

"You more than I Doctor, I've just got the one bloke after me."

"Bloke?" The Doctor looked at him, Harry shrugged in response.

"Megalomaniac bloke with a twisted streak."

"Aren't they all?"

"No, no some are just misguided, some have determination beyond all of us, it is what makes us unique individuals of the universe, not strings of sausages waiting for the grill."

"I'm sure Magister would be interested to hear that point of view."

"Magister?" The Doctor asked puzzled for a moment. "Oh you mean…the Master." Harry nodded. "Ran into him recently, paired up with the Rani."

Harry was sure he'd heard the name before. "One of your classmates?"

"Very good, very good Harry, yes a brilliant mind, a pity it was so twisted. Fortunately she seems to dislike the Master almost as much as I do."

"Hmmm." Was all Harry said. But the Doctor continued.

"He's not as he once was Harry, some nasty dealings on the side and some very bad attempts at prolonging his regenerations, he's quite mad and deluded."

"This is the Magister, I mean _the Master_?"

"Yes, convoluted schemes which, even when I was in my _last incarnation_ seemed to annoy even _him!_."

Harry smiled and couldn't help but ask and was rewarded with some odd examples, that did sound like the Magister was had been sitting around trying to think of ways to annoy the Doctor, the Magna Carter? It seemed a very convoluted way to annoy or attempt to kill the Doctor.

But for now, the Magister he knew was far from panomine mad.

"Now as I was saying Harry." The Doctor removed a handful of what looked like short stubby pen shaped devices. "Universal vaccine and universal anti-toxin with nanoparticles. They have a very short life when injected Harry, use them _carefully._" The Doctor went on to describe exactly how they worked on a human's biology.

They were much better than keeping a bezoar stone around just in case you got poisoned by a potion.

Harry stood back and waved to the TARDIS as it dematerialised leaving him on the quiet road once more, thinking about what the Doctor had said about determination, reason and amongst other things control.

It was odd, the Magister had mentioned those things and more, mostly about control and power and maintaining those two things even at the height of an emotional situation.

Something _he_ obviously abandoned later in his life according to the Doctor.

--//

Harry rolled out of bed and stared out the window a grim look on his face as he rummaged around under his pillow for the bottle of aspirin. There was only so many times he could go to Madame Pomfrey for a potion to stop the throbbing pain in his head.

It came and went, much like the tide, he wasn't sure what it was due to; the occlumency with Snape all of the time, which he had to admit was helping with the dreams, or was it that effort he had to constantly go to to keep his most secret thoughts hidden from Snape, or it could possibly be the dreams that despite his strangle hold on the various mental practices that both the Magister had taught him and that Snape was teaching him were still penetrating through.

Chewing on the bitter tablets without any water left a gritty bitter sensation down the back of his throat that would last until his first cup of tea of the morning, he'd long since forgone the morning pumpkin juice that everyone enjoyed.

Harry sighed looking out the window again and wondered if he should start drinking coffee, then he shook his head, it was hard enough to convince the house elves that he didn't want pumpkin juice in the morning. He was pretty sure at the end of his 'tea speech' he'd ended up sounded a bit like the Doctor extolling the virtues of a good cup of tea in the morning.

--//

Harry gazed at the cup of tea that Umbridge had offered, his play of pretending to drink wasn't flying with her either.

Probably the stun he'd pulled with her Inquisitional Squad hadn't helped, it had lifted his headache of the day up to a full blown migraine but hypnotising them into stripping off and taking a swim in the lake had been most…satisfying, if a little disturbing seeing Malfoy naked.

He'd meant to do more, but with Marietta and everything it had annoyed him somewhat.

He pretended to fidget as he felt around in his trouser pocket for the universal vaccine pen injector, he kept one of each all the time in each pocket. Grasping it he manoeuvred it within his pocket and pushed the button, there was a slight sting.

"Thank you _Headmistress_." He said with gritted teeth and watched her face as he picked up the cup and drained it, he eyes widening and her face forming into what he imagined she though of as a smile.

"Where is Albus Dumbledore?"

"No idea, do you know where he is?" He asked, figuring he might as well interrogate her, as she was obviously him.

"I know that you know where he has gone. You and Dumbledore have been in this from the beginning."

"You know, that I know where he's gone, but I don't know, so does that mean you know, that I don't know where he's gone or I have the knowledge, which is no knowledge at all of the location of where he is…or maybe as I don't know where he is, that's an answer in and of itself, the non-knowledge is knowledge, I _don't_ know where he is, so of all the places that I know are all the places he can't be, so everywhere that I don't know is where he might be." Harry smiled over to Umbridge who seemed to be foaming at the mouth, listening to the Doctor really had come in useful, it was quite fun making mad computers, or this case power mad burecrats confused.

"You impudent child." Harry felt like punching this air, an insult already and his headache wasn't really around anymore, he wondered if he should push his luck and ask for more tea, maybe it might make her explode.

Though he didn't fancy having to clean her off his robes.

Though her death would be far better than her continued existence.

"Tell me the whereabouts of Sirius Black."

Harry blinked.  
"Sirius Black the wanted murderer."

"The very same."

"The man who escaped from the Ministry's quite clearly not escape proof prison?" He asked again.

Harry shrugged as Umbridge laid out her evidence of him talking with Sirius.

A part of him wanted to say, 'yep you're right' just to see if he could make her pop, or at least pop a blood vessel and keel over where she sat to the faint mewing of painted kittens.

Instead he decided to just annoy her. "If I had seen Sirius Black, what makes you think I would tell you anything about his location or anything of worth to the Ministry, what have they done for me, for this school lately?" He sneered to her shocked face.

As he finished speaking there was an explosion and the room shook.

Pyrotechnics as well, he or whoever launched the explosion did have a good sense of dramatic timing he decided with a smile as Umbridge slipped off her chair.

While she was on the ground he took the opportunity to slip out of her room.

--//

Harry cursed himself for his curiosity, but he had justified it to himself at the time, Snape had had a field day rummaging thing his memories, why not look through one of his.

And what a memory and a revelation it was.

His father hadn't just been arrogant, he'd been relatively cruel to Snape. Harry found himself mentally comparing his father to Malfoy, though Malfoy had never really had the clout to take on anyone, to string them up, and throw humiliating spells at them. Malfoy _was_ arrogant, he would stab you in the back and throw the occasional spell at one's back, he was relatively manipulative, conniving, he like his words, even if they were insulting vaguely racist words and insults.

But his father, Harry shuddered as he recalled the memory, that was a whole other kettle of fish.

It reminded him of what had happened to him in primary school with Dudley and his 'gang', not just him (though usually him) and other kids. But this was at Hogwarts where they were his age or so.

It was the cruel arrogance of it, the coldness of his father and the tone that he'd used against his (at that point) to be mother.

It chilled him and slightly sickened him to the bone and suddenly made him realised why Snape had treated him as such with memories like these of his father.

But he wasn't his father's son, he was his own man.

--//

Harry was feeling both elated and still somewhat bitter, elated that he would be able to speak to Sirius, _despite _what he had seen in Snape's memory he was the one person he could speak to about…everything, there didn't exist a word that could describe …everything that had been happening everything he needed to talk to him about. A series of words yes, but whenever he thought about it he just ended up mentally trailing off to the word 'everything'.

Umbridge was sitting at the back of the classroom, on a stool, he had a big urge to kick it out from under her feet, maybe she'd fall and split her head open like a watermelon.

He could always get new shoes if the blood didn't wash out.

Though he didn't think Professor McGonagall would appreciate the blood splatter involved.

"Well Potter, this meeting is to talk over any career ideas you migh have, and to help you decide which subjects you should continue into sixth and seventh years. Have you had any thoughts about what you would like to do after you leave Hogwarts?"

He had thought somewhat, though he didn't think the Professor would appreciate 'travel around time and space' with that guy who rescued me, he travels in a Police Box and he's an alien would be a good answer, nor would be 'there's this other guy I know as the Magister does the same sort of thing, different motivations, could be fun' as a good enough answer.

"Mr Potter?" The Professor repeated.

"Sorry Professor. Yes I had considered what I would do."

"And?"

"I had thought of being an Auror." He started.

"You'll need top marks for that." She said.

But Harry continued. "But then I thought that wasn't really for me, _policing_ isn't really what I want to do. I'd like to investigate, help, inform, discover…explore." He said with a smile.

McGonnal was looking at him with an odd expression on her face. Umbridge was coughing behind them.

Harry turned around. "Do you need a cough drop Professor Umbrdige."

"I'm sure Delores is fine Harry." The Professor said dismissively, she sounded like she didn't care if Umbridge keeled over and painted the floor a crimson colour.

"But what is it that you want be, what career do you want?"

"I'm not sure Professor, I think, self employed would be the word to describe it, how does the saying go 'lets get through this crisis before we start on the next'?"

McGonagall pursed her lips and then sighed.

"Then that is your choice Mr Potter, what subjects will you be taking on this 'adventure' of yours?" The coughing continued, Harry raised an eyebrow at McGonagall but she just stared at him.

"Probably those that I'm taking now Professor, I'm finding Ancient Runes most interesting." The Harry added casually with a shrug. "But I'll work the details out later."

"Very well Mr Potter, you may go."

Harry walked slowly along to the back of the room and said as he was passing Umbridge. "They say decapitation works well for a sore throat Professor." He shut the door before she could say anything.

--//

Time seemed to slow down as he watched Sirius fall towards the Veil. In a part of his mind he was waiting, hoping for a blue box to appear, for a man to leap out and catch him, he was simultaneously hoping that he would appear, time turner around his neck to catch Sirius as he fell, or for the Magister to rip off a rubbery mask that he'd been hiding in the background and grab Sirius and sweep them away from all this.

None of that happened.

This was an event that time travel wasn't going to get him out of. An event that couldn't be undone.

He ran, he felt his blood pumping in his ears, he was going to _KILL_ Bellatrix.

"_Come out, come out, little Harry_!" He maddened voice called to him. "What did you come after me for then? I thought you were here to avenge my dear cousin!" she called.

"I am." Harry whispered to himself. "I am."

"Aaaah…did you _love_ him, little baby Potter?"

In that moment he shouted, or roared, or screamed he didn't really know, in the next moment he had decided he wouldn't kill her, that would be too quick.

Determination, focus, hatred, focus, you had to have that with lots of spells, focus and the power to carry it through.

Harry levelled his wand at Lestrange, right out the front of the Ministry and spoke, incanted in a levelled voice dripping of determination, focus and power. "_Crucio!"_

Bellatrix's body lit up in the spell and her voice caught in her throat. Harry was cast into light and the shadows danced around them as Harry lifted to spell.

"Scream you little bitch, scream!" Harry said in a raised voice as he took another sharp breath. "I want you to scream for mercy, as your cousin had no chance to!"

"_Crucio!"_ As she danced in light and spell fire again Harry let out a short, deep laugh, power coursing through him as she was both caught in frozen the spell frozen and danced and contorted throughout the spell's affect.

Then suddenly he heard a clapping sound and the world refocused in a resounding clash of light and pain as his scar exploded with agony.

"It seems out last encounter did teach you something Potter, the correct usage of the Criciatus, and on Bella…now Potter where is my prophecy."

Harry wanted to say that technically it was _their_ prophecy, but his mind was somewhat darkened and heaving after his repeated use of the Cruciatus curse, and a part of him wanted to use it again, to feel its power coursing through him once more.

"It's smashed, gone forever, unless you're handy" Harry paused to bite his lip, _hard_ it for a moment broke through the pain of his scar. "superglue."

"You smashed _my_ prophecy?" The red eyes regarded him. "Months of preparation, months of effort…and my Death Eaters have let Harry Potter thwart me again…"

Bellatrix was mumbling something unintelligible at Voldemort's feet, he kicked her aside. "I shall deal with you in a moment Bell, do you think I have entered the Ministry of Magic to hear you sniveling apologies?"

Then Voldemort drew himself up to full height.

"I have nothing more to say to you Potter." He said quietly. "Yopu have irked me too often, for too long. _AVADA KEDAVRA!_"

Harry was only just started to try and move as the spell flung itself at him when the statue of the wizard in the fountain came to life and moved in front of him, the spell splashing harmlessly over its chest.

"What-? _Dumbledore!"_ Voldemort practically hissed.

'So this is what possession feels like' Harry thought to himself as he felt Voldemort crawl into his mind. The pain that had been there had long since passed beyond anything that he could feel, or at least his mind and body had disconnected and he'd probably blacked out, yet not.

He began to think and push and prod the force from within, he was sure someone was speaking, using his voice, but it was like listening in a tunnel, he could just about 'see' the sensation of Voldemort, he wanted to push, to expel him from his mind and then…

Then Dumbledore's face swam into view. "Are you alright Harry?"

--//

Harry didn't know what to think, not now, sitting in Dumbledore's office, now having heard what _all_ of this was all about.

A prophecy.

A prophecy.

A prophecy.

Parts of which had already been fulfilled. He was here, with scar after all.

He wanted to scream and shout and break something, but he'd already done that to most of the breakable things in the room.

A part of him wanted to be back, in front of Bellatrix, there he had felt in _control_ full of power and in control of the situation, it had been clear, clear and simple, powerful.

But now, now he felt, different.

Now there was, had always been a prophecy.

Had that been the reason Wormtail had been uncovered, that Voldemort had been resurrected? That Cedric had died, because of some stupid old witch had come up with some words of messed up wisdom that completely screwed up his life, their lives.

"So." He said after a while, he looked around idly scratching the back of his hand, the genetically engineered thing had long since dropped off, probably somewhere in the ministry. He suddenly realised he'd been pacing up and down the room, his feet crunching over the glass. "So, does this mean one of us has got to kill the other one, in the end?"

"Yes." Said Dumbledore.

A simple one word answer.

So that was it, kill Voldemort or he had to kill him, simple.

Maybe he could drop him into the sun…Harry thought for a moment and then shook his head, he'd put that on the totally insane pile.

--//

It was night, and the hospital wing was quiet, all quiet except one red head muttering to himself on the bed as he was wracked with small convulsions and tremors.

Madame Pomrey had been at a loss thus far, the brains that had attacked Ron were a mystery, though she had said there was an unction that would perhaps help some of the welts that had been left by the brains.

"Ha-Ha-Harry?" Ron moaned as he cast a silencing charm around the bed.

"Hello Ron, the dreams…?" He asked as he slung the army bag off and removed the device.

"What's that?" Ron managed to squeak through convulsions.

"Something I think will help." Harry said in a low voice.

"Where'd it come from, is it muggle?"

Harry shook his head.

"Where?"

"From my friend, the one who rescued me last year, I think it'll help with all the stuff from the brains."

"It looks…weird Harry."

"Do you trust me Ron?"

"Yes Harry."

"I trust my friend." Harry said looking down at Ron who nodded a small nod. Harry placed the spider like device on Ron's head, who cringed as it made contact, Harry then removed the flat paddle and pushed the first of the buttons, the device hummed softly and Harry began waving the paddle slowly over Ron's arms where the welts were.

He continued this procedure through all of the buttons, slowly, throughout much of the night the welts faded until they looked like dull burns or blisters.

As the sun was poking its way through the windows he lifted the spider shaped thing off of Ron's head.

"Best go before anyone wakes up and finds me here." Harry whispered to the sleeping Ron and slipped out of the hospital wing.

--//

_For the Doctor and Ace this occurs before __Survival__._

_For the Master it's still __post Frontier in Space__, further along from his last encounter and closer to __The Deadly Assassin__, the event that caused his crispy-appearance hasn't happened yet, but the whole thing with the genetically engineered life form is a vague suggestion about him investigating the possibility of new life and stuff. It's also a thematic reference to (much later along the line) his snake-appearance in the __TV movie__._

_I haven't wanted to introduce the Anthony Ainley version of the Master as it throws up lots of issues about bodily possession. Also that version of the Master is a lot less morally ambiguous than this version of the Master, who occasionally does some good stuff in the TV series, he also often worked with the Doctor and you could see the friendship that was there._

_Later incarnations of the Master; Ainley's was more evil much less of the friendship present in their interactions (in fact many times he just seems to be trying to annoy the Doctor, look at The King's Demons for instance). _

_For Peri and the Doctor this occurs before __The Two Doctors__. _

_For those of you who've been counting you may notice that in this chapter I've now featured all 10 incarnations of the Doctor._

_One incarnation will be appearing twice more in the next two chapters. (Which will cover some of the events of __The Half-Blood Prince__ and __The Deathly Hallows__). _

_Sorry about the lateness of this chapter, I've been a bit busy of late. Next chapter should hopefully take less time than this has, but I won't give an estimate of when, maybe in a week, perhaps two. _


	9. Chapter 9

---

**Chapter 09**

Christopher Rodonanté Cwej tested the weight of the weapon in his hand that the Doctor had provided out of a military looking crate.

Roz was beside him pulling on the seemingly light weight body armour, that had also come from the crate.

"You sure our Adjudicator armour won't protect us?" Roz asked the Doctor who was still moving around the TARDIS console, a look of concentration on his face as he pushed buttons and adjusted their course like a concert pianist or an experienced navigator guiding the ship through the storm.

"R-r-relatively sure Roz."

"But you are sure about these armour and weapons Doctor?" Roz asked un-holstering her weapon again to study it, it was constructed unlike any energy weapon she'd ever used, but all weapons had the familiar trigger and bit that you pointed at the enemy, these even had two settings, kill and stun.

"Very sure Roz."

"How can you be Doctor, I thought you didn't like weapons?" Chris asked him, catching him as he made his way around the console once more.

"Oh but Chris, these aren't my weapons, you could say a friend across the way made them."

"He's being his mysterious bloody minded self again?" Bernice asked as she walked into the console room, looked uncomfortable in a similar piece of body armour and a weapon strapped to her thigh.

"What does that mean?" Roz looked over to the archaeologist.

"Bernice." The Doctor warned.

"He got these" She extracted the weapon with and ease that still made her uneasy from the holster, memories of her teenage years in the Academy, the military protocols drilled into the young open minds, orphans of the Spacefleet's wars, things you don't forget. "from another universe."

"Another universe." Chris repeated looking at the weapon, Benny had mentioned something about Earth Reptiles and another universe she and the Doctor had encountered a few years ago.

"Another universe that took a different path, with UNIT becoming an organisation that was an expert in _magic_ amongst other things." Then he muttered to himself "Very advanced in those other things and their magic."

"So this guy Harry Potter is going to be there _not_ the military one we met?" Benny asked, confronting the Doctor, he'd been less than communicative after she'd ignored his instructions and followed him out of the TARDIS and found him chatting to Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart _in and alternate reality_ with the green eyed man; Harry Potter.

"No." He deftly stepped around her and continued his button pushing around the console.

"There." He stepped away from the console and pushed a button making the scanner open up to display a highly detailed map of what looked like a castle.

"This is where the attack will take place."

"Will?" Bernice eyed the layout curiously. "We're defending a castle? Ace would have loved this." Bernice muttered a hard edge still present in her voice as she weighted the gun into her palm. She hated the things, she was an archaeologist not a crukking soldier, she'd proved the Spacefleet that when she'd escaped-poded it out of their clutches.

Bernice returned her focus to see the Doctor was watching her, _how_ he managed to do that while talking about _tactics_ to Chris and Roz she didn't know.

Bernice looked over to the older woman who was studying the map rather than the Doctor, the weapon the Doctor had given them all was already stowed in the holster he'd handed out like some military commander.

The Doctor always played at being a commander, organising the rebels against the bad guys, but this was…different.

This was about children and their war against some, by all accounts massively egotistical man who sounded like he was on the same wavelength as Adolf Hitler.

A chill ran down Benny's back as she thought back to being tortured by the Nazis on Guernsey, about those _genetic purists_ and their war to try and make it happen, then further back and the Daleks and their war to rid the galaxy of anyone who was unlike them.

The same patterns repeating over and over throughout the universe and at every point the Doctor was there to help things along.

She'd once asked (jokingly) if he'd given the dinosaurs a hand in shuffling off, but the Doctor had just gone all quiet and walked off, muttering about 'Addict' or something.

By her time the Earth had been invaded so many times working out if the dinosaurs had been wiped was more a question of 'who' rather than 'was it a natural occurrence', even the short list was long.

--//

Hermione's heart was thundering inside her chest as she gripped her wand and looked around the next corner of the castle.

_Death Eaters in the castle_!

That realisation kept going through her mind as she crept along the next corridor, all the while trying to ignore the explosions, the flashes of spell fire and everything else that was going on.

The doors hadn't been breached from the outside, the wards were still in place. The protections that Dumbledore had put in place were still there, even if he and Harry weren't still here.

It had been simple enough to work out where the Death Eaters had come from, once she'd discounted them having breached the walls of the castle.

"_Avada Kedavra!" _Hermione turned about 2 seconds too late, just in time to see the light and energy of the spell splatter through the air towards her. It impacted against a shield she hadn't cast, a-washing her vision for a moment.

"_Stupefy_." She said with force at the masked individual. As the spell hit its mark she breathed another sigh of relief and checked the device that was strapped to the side of her pocket, it was still functioning and from what passed as a display showed it still had a full charge…or whatever it was.

For the umteempth time since she'd left what was left of the DA she put her hand on the bag that carried her 'supplies', supplies Harry had told her to take if 'the situation demanded it'.

It was on the weekend after Harry had had his meeting with Dumbledore Harry had met her and told her some things.

_Flashback_

"Hermione."

"Harry?" Hermione looked up from her work.

"I think" Harry stopped in thought. Hermione looked at him a mix of curiosity and worry. "I think I need to tell you some other things, about my friend." He said casting a silencing charm around them, he really was getting quite good Hermione decided at effortlessly casting those charms that allowed them to have secretive conversations. Not that there was anyone much in the common room, certainly not anywhere near 'their' corner.

"Why now Harry?" She asked, she couldn't help asking. But then hastily added. "Not that I mind."

"Learning my secrets." He quirked an almost smile. "Whatever you and Ron think _I_ know Malfoy's up to something. But whatever happens, _just in case_ I…go down a corridor and face a three headed dog, or face a reincarnation of Tom Riddle, or happen to be out during a full moon or…" Harry trailed off as he listed all the things that had befalling him so far. "Our track record isn't brilliant."

"_Your_ track record Harry." Hermione said, a small smile on her lips.

"Hey you and Ron were there for the dog and chess…"

"Ginny for Riddle, all of us for Remus and…" She trailed off looking at Harry carefully.

"Yes." He finally said after a moment, the events of last year still burned, or smoldered within him. He had been somewhat thankful that the Doctor had not visited this year for his birthday or whenever he dropped in. He had seen nothing of either Time Lord so far.

He was (in amongst worrying about everything else that was going on) about the Magister, he had been oddly morose, almost like he was mirroring the Doctor somewhat when he'd visited last year. Though according to the Doctor he obviously went through some sort of regeneration at some point that led him to…cracking up a little bit.

But even though he only saw him once or maybe twice in the year, and almost always in different bodies it was still odd not seeing him.

Harry shook himself out of those thoughts, he needed to be in the present for now, too many things, too many events, too many people doing things outside of his control.

He thought by now he'd actually be able to get his life under control, now that he knew the prophecy, but it seemed even now knowing about the Horcruxes there seemed to be an long road ahead.

And at the end of that road Voldemort.

He let out a sigh, Hermione had been at him to explain more than he had last year, she hadn't said anything up until now, but…he felt he should let her know some things, as time moved on and what not, he might not be here when the preverbial shit hit the metaphorical fan.

Or he might.

"I trust you Hermione." He finally said looking at her.

Hermione blinked several times. "Okay."

"You were on the right track, my friend is a time traveller." Hermione's eyes went wide, then she punched him.

"I knew it!"

"Hey, what was that for?" Harry asked, rubbing his shoulder.

"You said he wasn't!"

"I led you to believe that, I didn't say one way or the other." Harry defended, leaning back into the confines of the chair, and then realised he preferred to lean forward to talk to her.

It was a little more than the basics he'd already told Hermione before, just that he was a time traveller, that he'd met him several times, and that he had several 'useful things' in his trunk.

"What's his name?"

"Hmm?" Harry asked as they were rising so he could show Hermione the 'useful items' in his trunk.

"What's the name of your friend who keeps turning up?"

"The Doctor."

Hermione pondered the name as Harry broke into a smile, a smile she hadn't really seen since last year before, well before the Department of Mysteries, before Sirius died, before all that.

_Present_

Hermione patted the outside of the bag, she didn't want to think about some of the things _inside_ the shoulder bag she'd transfigured to carry the items she thought she'd need.

The aluminium cans especially she didn't want to touch, didn't want to think about 'Nitro-9' Harry had called them, a friend of the Doctor's, someone who travelled with him had given them to him, as he explained to her the potential damage they could cause she had her own cause for concern.

But if there was anything that was going to be useful against the cabinet, it was these.

She needed to destroy both ends of the cabinet to stop any Death Eaters getting into the castle.

_Here I was getting telling Harry about his saving people thing_. Hermione thought to herself, she almost spoke aloud, but stopped, she'd (half-jokingly) chastised Harry for doing exactly the same thing.

The device sitting on her pocket was according to Harry like the thing he used at the Quidditch World cup a _Tzun_ force field generator.

When Harry had said the name she'd thought he was mumbling then she made him spell it, or at least how he thought it was spelt, obviously he'd never seen it spelt either, but at least she could say it to herself without agonizing over how it should be spelt _if_ she were ever to write it down.

_Not_ that she could ever write it down, she doubted anyone would believe her. Except maybe the Centaurs, they seemed to think something was going on in the stars, according to Ron at least who had been taking Divination.

Hermione chewed her lip, she hoped Ron was alright.

And the others she hastily, mentally added to her worry list, _and_ the others, _not_ just Ron. Hermione shifted her weight to her other foot listening to her own breathing for a second. She had left the Marauder's Map with Ron and what remained of the DA, they were spread out throughout the castle. The attack had happened so suddenly and from within that there were students spread out throughout the castle and _of course_ most of the Death Eaters had been to Hogwarts and were _obviously_ keeping guard on the entrances to the Houses' common rooms.

It had taken them and the teachers too long to realise it, and it had been Ron who had worked it out _not_ the teachers.

Maybe that was what she liked about him…she idly wondered in the thoughts between breaths of the cool castle air and the almost constant, though duller cries of spell casting and noises of impacts.

As she crept along the next corridors past the various rooms of the castle she let her hand drift again down to the bag, as the rising tension in her shoulders crept upwards as the potential danger increased the further she got from the ground floor and the closer she got to her destination.

Her hand fell to the canister that _wasn't_ the 'Nitro-9', but rather one of the many things that Harry had left her in his own 'bigger on the inside' bag, which she'd left within his trunk, just in case…well she didn't want to think about what happened after 'just in case' quite yet.

It was then that she heard it, the groaning, whistling noise, off to one side of the corridor she had been making her way down. It whipped up the parchment and quills that littered the ground. It was a noise she'd heard twice before. Before her eyes a blue shape ground its way into reality, forming into the design of a blue 1960s Police Box. She only just noticed the light on its top was flashing as it finished coalescing. Unconsciously she realised her hand had gone to the canister in her bag. Hermione didn't let go of the canister, instead she brought it out of her bag and held onto it, her thumb on the release, _just in case_. 'Constant Vigilance' and all that Moody had gone on about.

Maybe this was some Death Eater induced psychosis, she entertained to herself as she looked around and then decided thoughts like that mean she had certainly been talking too much to Harry in the past, too many hypotheticals.

The door creaked open, which Hermione didn't think sounded much like a craft that could coast the dimensions of space and time and a young blonde man stepped out wearing a military vest she's seen on the news every now and then when there was some large war going on.

Hermione levelled her wand at him.

"Who are you?" She hissed in a low voice glancing around, bringing up the canister, which from what she'd managed to read was a 'Fast Crowd Control Grenade' created by something called the 'Supreme Alliance', all this and its instructions had been written in some odd mix of English, German, French and some form of Anglicised Chinese from what she'd been able to make out. Thankfully there were pictographs showing what to do. She'd memorised her translations and the pictographs _just in case_ she needed to use them while Harry was gone. It looked non-lethal. Especially if it was crowd control it had to be.

"Doctor?" He called into the blue box, the _TARDIS_ Hermione recalled.

"Yes Chris." It didn't sound like a question, though the voice was muffled from somewhere within the box, Harry hadn't really explained how it functioned, or even what TARDIS meant.

"We've got company."

"Already, I think that's a record Doctor, we're not even out the door and already people are shooting at us."

"Bernice, they're not shooting at us." The voice said casually.

"Oh right, they're shooting at Chris, now I feel so much better." Said a female voice sarcastically.

"Come on Bernice, Roz, let's see who the welcoming party is" Then the voice dropped an octave or so. "And how many weapons they have pointing at us."

"Just the one." Hermione said as the three people stood in front of her.

"Hi there, Bernice Summerfield." The younger woman said with a smile, she seemed to Hermione uncomfortable with the holster strapped to her side, and she was holding onto a vest that the older black woman and the blonde man were wearing, the woman Bernice Summerfield looked around her and then looked at the shorter man and threw the vest into the open doors of the police box, the shorted man reached behind them, slamming the doors.

"Well now, what have we here, Ms Granger I presume."

Hermione regarded him. He didn't have a 'bright yellow jumper with question marks on it' as Harry had described the last time his 'friend' had visited, but his appearance and odd slightly Scottish accent sounded the same as when she'd _accidentally_ eavesdropped on Harry and the Doctor's conversation back at Grimmauld Place.

"You would be the Doctor then?" She asked him, her wand still pointed in the middle of their group, the older woman and the blonde man did after all have their hands on what could only be weapons. Hermione wondered if she'd feel better about this situation if she _wasn't_ so observant and hadn't noticed their weapons.

"Harry told you about me." It wasn't a question.

"He's-" Hermione started.

"With Dumbledore gathering a Horcrux, yes, I gathered as much Ms Granger, I would perhaps ask you" Hermione turned away from the Doctor as he was speaking and shouted "Get down!" At the same time as there were 6 shouts of spells from _"Avada Kedavra, Crucio, Confringo…_" and a few others she didn't recognise from further down the corridor. It took her less than a second to push the button on the canister and throw it.

Even with what Ron called 'a girl's throw' it still fell into the group, a moment later she wondered if she'd pushed the correct tab.

Then there was a flash and a bang and her ears popped.

"What the crukking cruk was that crukking grenade?" The woman; Bernice Summerfield was pulling herself up from the ground, and sounded like she was swearing, though with no words, or variations on words she'd heard of before, and considering she had Ron and Harry as friends and their vocabularies were rather verbose when it came to swearing that was something.

"A 'crowd control" grenade' The Doctor said the phrase 'crowd control' like a bitter taste in his mouth. "Use by the security forces of Magnus Greel himself against the Icelandic Alliance."

"When did this happen?" The blonde man asked curiously.

"Long after your time Chris, during the 51st century and the Zygma beam time experiments, very nasty." He glanced to the side. "I wouldn't look Ms Granger."

But Hermione was already turning she had to…but any thoughts she had stopped there and she gagged, bile rushing up through her gut at what was…what was left of the Death Eaters.

"Very nasty, Greel didn't have much of a concept of levity."

"You sound like you knew him." Roz asked.

"Once. Quite mad. Though quite the scientist."

Hermione cringed and swallowed and was greatly thankful she hadn't recently eaten.

If this was "crowd control" she didn't want to see their idea of deadly weapons.

"Usually the protesters or the enemy would have been far larger than this. I hadn't intended to leave Harry with that specific weapon." Hermione turned away from the corridor that was; there was no other way to think of it, splattered with the remains of 6 people to see the Doctor facing her.

"They were our enemy Granger. You dealt with them." The black woman said from just behind the Doctor, the younger woman Bernice Summerfield shot her a look.

"I see Harry left you the force field."

"Ye…" Hermione forcibly swallowed again, cringing at the acid in the back of her throat

"Now Ms Granger what is the situation here."

"_Doctor_." The woman, Bernice Summerfield fixed the Doctor with a glare.

"Very well Bernice, we have a few moments."

Benny looked at the young woman who seemed to be fighting off the need to vomit. She had to commend the young woman from not chucking her guts at the view of what was left of the people. From the intent, rather than the words of faux Latin had sounded like something dangerous. Dangerous enough for 'Ms Granger' to chuck the grenade.

"Hey." Benny said fishing around in her jacket.

"Hi." She croaked.

"Bernice Summerfield, I guess your last name's Granger."

"Her…Hermione." She looked around and thumbed a control that was attached to a device on her pocket Bernice observed, a ellipse shape that surrounded her flared for a moment.

Then she started breathing in deeply, as though the force field had been holding back the air or something.

Bernice raised an eyebrow as Hermione tensed as she withdrew her hipflask from her pocket.

"Here have a nip." She looked back over where the Doctor was looking at some device, he was frowning deeply, that wasn't good.

Hermione had taken the hip flask and was waving her wand over it cautiously. The Doctor hadn't really been all that forthcoming about exactly _how_ this so called _magic_ worked. She certainly didn't remember anything about it from her time. Though it was reasonable that any secret society would obviously be a secret.

Which would mean that it was still active in her time. Secret societies tended to become more visible when they died out and left evidence, but even now hiding a whole society must be a massive task, and there must be some remains. Benny smiled to herself, archaeology was all about uncovering what had been left behind, discovering secrets and the mundane.

Hermione checked the hipflask, according to the detection spell it was safe, she imagined she could see Professor McGonagall's disapproving stare at her, however she remembered her father's tales when he and his buddies had been in the 'forces as a young man and…her train of thought was kicked out as the alcohol burned down her throat and everything snapped out of what she assumed was shock and back into reality and everything felt suddenly more urgent now that she'd been standing here being delayed from her destination.

"Ur…Bernice." She held out the flask, unsure how to address the woman.

"Thanks. Gotta save some for when we're in a dire situation and the bad guys begin camping it up with their 'nothing in the world' speeches, once you've heard one…"

"Ah…Miss Granger I trust Bernice has" His eyes trailed over to Bernice's hip flask "Assisted you."

Hermione nodded as she pondered the Doctor's odd Scottish burr that seemed to come and go as she looked at him she met his gaze and a chill passed over her spine, it was like…

"Like gazing into a storm." Hermione blinked and realised that it was Bernice's voice, she glanced over and saw she was watching the interchange.

"There are Death Eaters throughout the school, Ron and the teachers are trying to clear them from the ground level, I was going to…" Hermione patted her bag, just making sure it was still there as reality seemed to once again take hold and the noise of spell work in and around the castle went up several notches in volume.

"Looks like your doodad's come to the end of its cycle Doctor."

"It's not a 'dodad' Professor Summerfield, but a carefully modulated temporal disruption device. You were saying Ms Granger."

Hermione blinked and thumbed the force field control so it hummed into its on position.

"I was going to destroy the vanishing cabinet that they're coming into the castle via, that's the only way the should be able to be getting in."

"Yes, of course. The wards are still active." He muttered seemingly to himself.

"How did you…" Hermione started to ask, but was interrupted by Bernice and the Doctor who both asked;

"How are you going to blow it up?" Except the Doctor said "destroy the device?"

Hermione carefully withdrew one of the canisters, very carefully.

"Nitro-9?" Bernice asked incredulously.

"I believe Ace left several of them with Harry on my last visit. They should do very nicely."

Hermione nodded and then looked between them. "Are you going to…"

"Yes." He met her gaze once more, it was still like looking into an oncoming storm. And it was still slightly scary, though she couldn't fathom why. Perhaps this was why Harry had spoken with such familiarity, awe and wonder about this man who had visited him in various "guises" as Harry had mentioned, though in hindsight she should have forced him to enlighten further on what that meant, despite what he'd told her this year he'd still been very sneaky in _what_ he'd said.

"Chris, Roz make your way down to the ground level, assist the teachers and students with their problems."

"Yes Doctor." The younger man, Chris smiled to her and looked to the older woman; Roz who nodded to him and he took off for the corridor that lead to the staircases _how_ they knew that was where it lead was another question entirely.

Roz paused beside her, Bernice and the Doctor.

"Lethal force Doctor?"

"When all else fails what is there left?" He murmured, or perhaps wondered to himself and the group assembled. "Roz there are children here, do what you need to keep them safe."

"Bernice, go with Ms Granger, I am sure she will need an extra set of eyes and ears."

"I'm fine on my own." Hermione started to say, though secretly she was relieved to have someone along.

"It is not your independent ability I am concerned about Ms Granger but when opposition stands in your way." He paused looked directly at Hermione. "You should use most of the cans, you will need to destroy both ends of the cabinet. Save some for a rainy day though." And then he turned away to take the same direction that Roz and Chris took.

"What're you off to Doctor."

"To try soften some murderous impulses." He called over his shoulder, and then he was gone.

"Come on then, you can tell me why someone from the late 20th century, if I've worked that out correctly is wondering around in a castle from the middle ages, with guys shouting 'spells' using bastardised Latin."

Hermione noticed out of the corner of her eye that Bernice had drawn a gun like the other two, she seemed to hold it as confidently as the other two, though reluctantly.

As they crept around the next corner to see it was empty Bernice spoke again.

"You're pretty perceptive."

"I'm sorry?" Hermione asked.

"You noticed my how I was holding this, body language reading is something of a fascination of mine."

Hermione shrugged. "When two of your best friends are boys reading the non-verbal becomes a daily event." A Death Eater ran out of a classroom shouting what sounded like spells through a strong European accent, Hermione pushed Professor Summerfield out of the way shouting a _Stupefy_ at them they fell over mid run, his or her head audibly hitting the stone floor.

"Thanks." Hermione nodded. Invulnerability bore a degree of bravery, though that didn't explain where Harry got his from (or perhaps it was just his saving people think, Hermione wondered for a moment), then reasoned; she would probably be a lot more scared if she didn't have this invulnerable force field around her.

"So what are you a Professor of, Professor?"

"Call me Benny. Archaeology."

"Really?" Hermione asked curious, despite the near death situation she'd been in for the last few hours, it was still fascinating to learn about things she had an interest in. Though history was far more interesting when she was investigating it herself rather than listening to Professor Binns drone on about the Goblin rebellions, she honestly couldn't work out _how_ anyone managed to learn anything from him since he began teaching at Hogwarts.

"From when?" Hermione suddenly.

"Originally? The 26th century."

"So you really are time travellers." Hermione whispered to herself.

"He didn't tell you?"

"Who?" Hermione asked.

"The Doctor?"

"I've only met him today, Harry told me about him, _some _of it anyway."

"What's he like your Harry Potter?"

"Didn't the Doctor…?" Hermione let the question hang as they climbed a short set of stairs that was set away from the main staircase, she used to use it as a short cut, but it involved going up a short flight cutting across a mezzanine level and then going back down some stairs, but she _hoped_ it would avoid any more of the oddly accented Death Eaters that had thus far assaulted them, not that it had really phased Professor Summerfield, Bernice, Benny to her friends and she insisted she refer to her as.

"He mentioned something about Harry being an old friend." She said vaguely. "The Doctor only gets in deep and meaningful and morose moods occasionally, most of the time he's a secretive alien who's busy being manipulative and conniving."

"Charming." Hermione said.

"So Harry?" Bernice asked curiously.

Benny listened as Hermione talked about Harry Potter, he seemed…actually she could see how this young man she was describing could be a friend of the Doctor's. Or the Doctor be a friend of his.

It really did sound like trouble followed Harry as much as it did the Doctor, just not as frequently, though he didn't have the advantage of being about to jump in the TARDIS and disappear when they needed, he and his friends lived through it year in year out, and attended school in a castle.

That was another odd thing, the way Hermione talked about the castle meant it couldn't be as old as it was, not given how big it seemed, it was an oddity she was determined to look into when she got back to the TARDIS, either that or interrogate the Doctor, though that never really yielded results. He'd probably just play the spoons again, Benny shuddered at the thought.

Now all of this was in motion because of a prophecy.

She wondered if the Doctor had anything to do with it, but it didn't have any of his usual scheming sense to it.

A predestination paradox which manifested in a prophecy she could perhaps understand, but with the Doctor, being a time traveller surely he'd be able to fathom a way out of it. But it did seem like Harry was making his own way through all of this, the Doctor was being, what he said he was, a friend.

It gave her a headache trying to get inside the Doctor's head, she suspected that like the TARDIS it was bigger on the inside than the outside and if she tried to think up to that level she'd get the same affect as going on a binge night of drinking through cheap bathtub gin and greasy food.

Dragons, Invisibility cloaks, Dementors, Phoenixes, Unicorns, castles, spells, magic, it was like something out of fiction, though the Doctor had assured them prior to arriving this wasn't anything like the 'Land of Fiction' nor was it an different universe, this was the same universe they were all from. It just a place that had _magic_, there must be some sort of psychic component to it, or a telekinetic edge, maybe with power projection. It wasn't unknown in her time, there was Jan and Christopher, victims of the military's experiments, she found herself wondering if they'd actually been part of, latent or not these people's society, or a genetic descendant at the very least, perhaps this was where many of the human genetic oddities sprang up from, from forgotten societies and legacies.

There was definitely a research grant in it, whenever she got back and needed some credits and to write a good paper for some recognition…on second thoughts it might be a little bit wild…even for some of the more esoteric circles she got drunk around in. Maybe it would be a good fiction novel…'Hogwarts Castle and the Serpent's Heir' by Professor Bernice Surprise Summerfield. It had a good ring to it. Though she'd actually like to get a sequel to _Down Among the Dead Men_ out to her publishers, she was vaguely sure she had a publishing deal with them, but that particular piece of paperwork was probably trampled into the dirt, somewhere on Heaven, in the past, which was actually the future this point in time.

Sometimes time travel gave her a headache…someone famous said that, or maybe it was just some woman who liked putting her hands on her hips.

"This is it."

"This is it." Hermione said in a low voice, the door to the room of requirement was open and inside it held the vanishing cabinet.

Inside there was a short atrium, or something and in front of them the cabinet. Hermione gazed in, she could see at the end had a crack and was sort of open.

It was like staring into a tunnel, that was both very long and not at all. It was a very odd sight that she didn't want to try and fathom, at least for the moment there were no Death Eaters making their way into the castle.

"How many cans?" She asked Benny beside her.

"Ace was never really accurate about how much each can packed. How many have you got?"

"12." Hermione answered immediately.

"Chuck four through and then four for this side."

"And four for a 'rainy day'."

"That's the Doctors scheming again. Here give me four so we can do this without blowing ourselves up."

"It couldn't just a friendly phrase?" She asked opening her bag.

"Not with the Doctor involved."

_In Hogsmeade…_

Harry sighed and breathed in the cool night air, though still aware of Dumbledore's weight against him.

Harry bit his lip and wondered if another dose of the anti-toxin would help, he'd already given him one dose before they'd started which had helped Dumbledore immensely, but then he'd given him the universal vaccine in the cave and another dose of the anti-toxin after it. He only had one more left and he was somewhat concerned such levels might be getting toxic, even more toxic than what Dumbledore was experiencing now.

Harry shrugged, it didn't seem to matter now, but when he'd tried to offer it to Dumbledore he'd shrugged it off. "Keep it my boy for a rainy day."

"It's pouring now Professor." He'd said, and now looking at Dumbledore it seemed that there was an oncoming storm.

Just as they he'd summoned the brooms there was a _thump_ and the noise of an explosion from Hogwarts.

"What the hell was that?" Harry muttered to himself gazing up at the chilling sight of the Dark Mark.

_Just outside the room of requirement and within the castle_

Hermione's heart was thumping, she could practically feel the adrenaline pumping through her, her hands were shaking and she felt immensely alive, ready for anything.

A section of her brain reasoned _that_ was because of the adrenaline coursing through her veins at the moment.

The explosion was louder than he thought it was going to be, the acoustics of the castle seemingly magnifying it so all those within her walls could hear that the intruders' entrance had been removed. Almost as though the castle wanted everyone aware of the fact.

"Stop!" He said in a raised voice. The amassed group of Death Eaters that had been doing whatever they had been doing were rushing towards the area in front of the Great Hall when the Doctor stepped out in front of them, holding only his umbrella to lean on.

"Who are you?" One of them shouted.

"That was the noise of your entrance and your escape being destroyed by one of my associates and of course one of the residents of this castle" then he muttered to himself "she wouldn't let strangers do that within her walls, so much like my own…"

"Kill him." Another shouted.

"Yes _kill him_ so simple isn't it, wave your wand, end a life." The Doctor took a step forward. "Acting on orders, your orders. Go on then. Kill me. A few words, torture, maim, kill. That's what your _master_ wants. Your _Lord_ that's what he promises."

"He promises _Power_. Not like muggles like you, you're not even worth the breath to speak a spell."

"Then why do you do it, why waste your existence wasting your breath here?" The Doctor paused looked over them, in their masks. "Your power is pitiful, you hide behind masks, what sort of _power _is that if you can't even face your enemy, or is it you don't want to face your victims?"

"We…we're better than…" One of them began to say.

"You're no better, these people, they face you open, ready, they wield the real power, courage, intelligence, cunning, tollerance, you can't even kill one person standing in front of you. You're weak, powerless _creatures_ hiding behind hate and cruelty, you're not even sure of your own ideology and yet you spout it so easily." The Doctor took another step forward, some of the Death Eaters began to prepare to take a step back.

"Stay where you are!" The Doctor boomed, he reflected even a Dalek could teach you something about controlling an audience. "I'm not finished with you _yet."_

"Stay back."

"Now you're scared, now you know how it feels to face your victims. But what am I, powerless, weaponless. You like your victims powerless don't you, they're 'muggles' they have no power against your might, your wands."

"Stop it."

"Stop what, talking about your victims, victims at the end of your wands, you like that don't you, you like the victims in control. When you're in control everything is alright, you have the power."

"Shut up."

"Don't you have the power now? You with your wands, pointing at me? Look at me, wave your wands, end another 'muggle's' life."

"I can't." One of them whimpered.

"No. You can't. Drop your wands." He whispered.

"No, shut up, shut…" One of the more vocal started shouting.

"Christopher, Roslyn if you would." The Doctor stated casually.

Behind him the pair of former Adjudicators stepped out from where the Doctor couldn't possibly have seen them approach and there was a stream of rapid fire around the Doctor causing all the Death Eaters around the Doctor to slump to the ground.

"The nature of it all." The Doctor muttered as he walked around picking up all the wands, dropping them inside his umbrella. "The front of the castle?"

"They're just clearing up."

"Casualties?" The Doctor asked looking over at the group of Death Eaters.

"They're stunned, we had to down a few of them, safety." Roz stated coolly.

"Come on, we should leave, before questions will be asked." The Doctor looked across the long corridor and could see Minerva McGonagall and a group of teachers and students coming their way, despite the fighting that was still occurring around them.

Benny followed Hermione along the corridors.

"Doctor!"

"Ah Bernice, I trust everything has worked out."

"Ace knows how to cook up that stuff, did everything…?" Benny started.

"Yes, the castle should be safe once more…give or take." He shrugged leaning on his umbrella casually.

"Sorry we couldn't chat more. I'm Chris Cwej, that's Roz."

"Forrester. Justice by your side." She began.

"Fairness be your friend." Chris winked at her as the Doctor opened up the doors to the TARDIS waving them in.

"Benny mentioned you would do something like this."

"It helps to avoid a lot of awkward questions Ms Granger. Tell Harry…" The Doctor was suddenly lost for words.

"I'll give him a hug from you." Hermione said.

"Follow what you're interested in Hermione, you've got a sharp mind, look me up…actually I'll find you, it's crukking impossible to have a fixed address when you're travelling with him." She shook Hermione's hand and went into the TARDIS.

"Goodbye Ms Granger." The Doctor said as the door closed.

Hermione stared watching as the TARDIS, (Time and Relative Dimensions in Space), Benny had explained to her disappeared, dematerialised into the vortex.

It gave her chills down her back, the noise, the sight, it had been something of a brilliant adventure these last few hours, she even allowed herself to forget about those who had died…and those she'd killed, that thought still lurked in the back of her mind, no matter how she consoled herself about the events of the day. But for a moment she allowed herself to be awed and excited by what she just saw.

"Ron!" She whispered to herself suddenly being pulled back to the present with the noise of feet and people shouting.

--//

Harry found himself wonder the castle's corridors, it had been…some nights since Dumbledore…since he…

He paused for a moment, resting a hand against the castle's cool stone walls, since the night he died.

He was also out walking, tonight to try and talk with Hermione, she'd mentioned something about the Doctor being here, but that was all, she'd been oddly fine during the day they'd spent talking, reminiscing about Dumbledore talking about the Horcruxes, but Ron had noticed it. Before he had, but then Ron was spending a lot more close in time with her than he had recently. He'd asked him in an odd awkward manner to talk to her, or get her to talk.

He found her in an empty corridor looking out one of the windows, it was a corridor about half way up the castle on one side.

Completely empty, they were long past the curfew that had been established, not that anyone was listening to those sorts of things any more, it all seemed like a joke, a stupid set of rules imposed now that life was all that more real.

"Ha-Harry." She looked up.

"Hey Hermione."

"Ron's worried about me." She stated looking past him and down the corridor a distant worried look on her face. He noticed she was chewing her lip again.

"So which Doctor was it?" He asked after a while.

"What?" Hermione turned her head quickly to stare at him.

Harry smiled sadly. "I didn't explain, not fully, he's got…different aspects, he's different people…" Harry walked over and sat on opposite her in the alocove of the window, the stone was strangely warm, even though the stone and glass around the window was cold.

"Heating charm." Hermione tapped her wand against the stone a faint trace of a smile washed over her face as her wand sparked against the stone work.

"He…his species changes, when their bodies…die." It was still oddly hard to think of death without imagining Dumbledore's body, lying in its state like that. "He changes, his whole aspect, personality. He's always my friend, he's always got these quirks, but it's like meeting a different person, a great brilliant, amazing being that seems to transcend everything around him, but…" Harry shook his head trailing off.

"When I first met him he was old, but he was so young, full of life…" He shook his head smiling to himself remembering. "After a few times I joked how he changed, what lead to him…dying. I never really thought of it as dying, not really, he was still all there, the same person, though different, I thought…I thought that would make it easier when Cedric died and Sirius and now Dumbledore. But they're not living on, coming back to see me, they're gone." Harry sighed staring out the window. "But the Doctor he, he keeps on going, fighting for the good, the better, beating back the shadows, through force of will, and power of personality. Sometimes he seems to burn like fire, other times he seems mad, or dapper with his aikido. But he's always around, always my friend, even if he keeps changing, being different, yet the same…" Harry shook his head and looked at Hermione. "Sorry, I'm rambling."

"Oh Harry…he was the same man, the one I heard you meet last year, though he seemed…older, harder…he was travelling with these three people." The Harry noticed the old-Hermione come out of the fore as she began to describe the three, or in particular Professor Bernice Surprise Summerfield.

Then she switched track after she'd finished describing how she and Professor Summerfield had destroyed the cabinets. "But then Harry…oh Merlin…when they first arrived…they…" She was started to hyperventilate. "There was…Death Eaters, six…six Death Eaters…and they were going to attack and I…I…" Hermione's eyes were welling up with tears. Harry reached forward drawing her into a hug.

"It's okay, it's okay, whatever it was…"

"I threw, the crowd control grenade you had…I thought…I thought I'd translated it alright, that it was non-lethal…I though I could just incapacitate them. Oh Merlin Harry…there was…they were…" She took a deep faltering breath of air burring her face into Harry's jacket. "I killed them, I killed the 6 Death Eaters…there was…there was barely anything left." Harry just continued to pat her back as she cried into his jacket for a moment.

Harry turned his head to look across at the corridor where _it_ had occurred. It was clean, as though nothing had happened…almost too clean.

Hermione leaned away from him wiping her eyes.

"I've made your collar all wet."

Harry smiled. "Doesn't matter." Hermione slumped against the wall. "You did the right thing you know." He said making her fix him with a stare.

"What?"

"You did the right thing, they were here to maim or kill people in Hogwarts."

"I know but…"

"Did you see in the hospital wing those that were _touched_ by the Death Eaters that got through." Harry said with anger and bitterness in his voice.

Hermione nodded a sour expression forming over her face, _that_ was a despicable act if ever there was one, she would have killed the people for what they had gone through. One of the Hufflepuff girls, deprived of her wand by _them_ had clawed her attacker's eyes out.

"I still…I still feel that I should have known that…" She trailed off. "I thought I heard screams as Bernice and I blew up the cabinet."

"What did she say?"

"Who?" Hermione asked.

"Bernice. She must have heard it too."

"That they were 'fascist bastards attacking a school is one of the lowest despicable acts and that we're defending ourselves from them.'" Harry nodded as she spoke.

"That's what I was going to say as well. I would have liked to meet this Professor Summerfield of yours. And the two 'Adjudicators', I'm sure the Doctor has mentioned the Guild of Adjudicators before."

"They seemed pretty hard, determined."

"We're in a war Hermione, they brought it too us, invaded our home here, you, I were defending ourselves, we need to keep that in mind. Had those six got through you they would have been even more downstairs doing Merlin knows what to the other students."

"Those who couldn't defend themselves." Hermione whispered.

"Yes. I need to finish this, end it."

"We Harry, don't you start the solo avenger stuff again." Hermione chastised him crossly.

Harry smiled. "So where did the TARDIS land? You saw it arrive then?" Hermione pushed herself away from the window and walked over to where she had seen it arrive.

Even now it was gone she could still remember where it had arrived, where it had sat for those few hours. It was as though it was locked in her memory, or maybe the castle remembered it. She watched as Harry walked over the spot where it had 'landed', squatting down and feeling the stone.

It was good, to stand, smiling, talking, even laughing for even a few moments, in amongst everything.

--//

_Notes:_

_To round off my Doctor Who appearances I've had a whole bunch of TV appearances, one appearance of an audio drama companion (Charley Pollard) and now the Virgin New Adventures. The Seventh Doctor was known as one of the great manipulators, which really came to the fore in the New Adventures series published after Doctor Who went off the air in 1989, these novels were published from 1991 to 1997. _

_For the (Seventh) Doctor, Bernice Summerfield, Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester this occurs after __Just War__ and before __Sleepy__._

_Additionally The Half-Blood Prince is a pretty well paced story with a lot of events going on for Harry, finding a place for the Doctor was tricky without offsetting the balance and detract from Harry and Dumbledore's interaction._

_However the battle that he and Dumbledore come in at the end of is somewhat less defined._

_I've obviously made the battle here, like Harry's encounter with Voldemort after the Tri-Wizard Tournament more violent and graphic, but I also wanted to keep this about Hermione which is why the more violent acts are told after the fact. That is except Hermione's kill count early in the fic._

_I also rather enjoyed writing Hermione in the starring role (I hadn't quite decided how this chapter was going to play out, aside from the Doctor, Benny, Chris and Roz being present during the battle). But as Hermione and Harry's friendship has developed I decided that she would be perfect for this chapter, and this meeting. _

_Next chapter (that which is set during the events of __The Deathly Hallows)__**will not**__ be the last chapter of this story. _

_The 'other universe' mentioned early in this fic is me doing a bit of self-referencing, (which I did have some reservations about doing). It's a brief bit of referencing to my other series of fics 'Night Wolf'. I could have just said the Doctor got some odd energy weapons out of a special box or something, but I think I can be occasionally indulgently self referential._

_Thanks for reading._


	10. Chapter 10

----

**Chapter 10**

Harry looked to Hagrid, rage in his ears at the loss of Hedwig as spells spun and warped through the air and wondered for the briefest of moments what he would think, though as he was thinking this he had already begun to shout.

"_Avada Kedavra! Avada Kedavra! Avada Kedavra!"_ Backwards and around spellfire leapt from his wand backwards and sidewards even as the side car was tearing itself loose from the motorbike.

He only paused briefly, trembling slightly in the rocking sidecar and in the wind to cast a levitation spell on sidecar when a Death Eater came level, he could hear Hagrid calling something in the background when he spoke the spell, calming himself as he did so, though the rage, the adrenaline still pumped through his system.

"_Avada Kedavra!"_ His voice was still raised, though he felt some satisfaction as the Death Eater toppled from his wand, a part of his mind, perhaps that which had been tortured by dreams wished that the Death Eater had screamed on his descent.

"I'm comin', Harry, I'm comin'!" Harry only just heard Hagrid over the sound of the wind and the sound of his heart beating and the blood pumping in his ears. He tensed as Hargid grabbed a hold of him and grabbed his backpack as Hagrid pulled him up behind him.

With the destruction of the sidecar and Harry was satisfied to see another Death Eater down the spells continued to fly around them, but it gave him the briefest moments to steel himself, spells flying around him added to distract him, it wasn't as though this hadn't happened before, though before he hadn't quite been so high.

Then a spell flew out from the side and Harry felt a sensation that made him oddly nostalgic, it broke three of his ribs.

He swore, rather violently and even despite the situation Hagrid said. "Steady on there Harry."

Harry thought briefly about arguing that Hagrid had said nothing of the dozen of so Avada Kadavra's he'd rattled off in the last few minutes, however one of the Death Eaters swerved over to them and his hood slipped down, revealing not a mask but a face he recognised.

Stanley Shunpike, with an odd blank look on his face.

In some wars, innocent people die. He thought to himself. But even the innocent deserved a chance.

"_Petrificus Totalus_." He said in a level voice, though didn't watch as the stiff body slipped from the ground and fell towards the ground, he didn't have any idea if the solidness of the body would protect Shunpike from the fall. But there was always chance.

Then as he listened to Hagrid reassure him that they would make it his scar, despite everything he had been doing preparing his mind, the mental exercises the Magister taught him, the occlumency, everything that seemed to help a little bit, while still allowing the maddening dreams to penetrate his mind were not helping at this moment as pain blossomed out of his scar. Harry bit his already split and bleeding lip harder, the pain bringing everything back into some semblance of clarity.

Then everything seemed to happen at once, Voldemort arriving, his wand moving of its own accord and the crash, it had all seemed to happen as Harry lay in the darkness following the crash in a few seconds, all mashed together with the rush of adrenaline and the near-death excitement that seemed to accompany these things.

Maybe this was the thrill both the Magister and the Doctor felt…when friends and those you cared about were in danger.

--//

"Voledmort caught up with you?" said Lupin sharply. "What happened? How did you escape?"

Harry told them briefly, though when Lupin asked what spells, he told him with a cool face Lupin merely blinked and nodded.

"Then there was Stan Shunpike, from the Knight Bus, he looked like he was Imperiused.

"Harry you didn't stun him?" Lupin asked aghast.

"No." He paused and looked at the man in front of him. "I full body binded him, he fell into the darkness. He may have well as died."

"Harry the time for…" Lupin started. Harry stopped him.

"There is a chance he survived and there is a chance he died. No one saw, Voldemort must have been in the area, _tracking _and _waiting_ for me. Remus." Harry said addressing him calmly, taking a breath of the warm kitchen air that always felt so homey. At the moment after the cool night air it felt somewhat clawingly. "_He_ knew we were going to be out tonight, there were way too many Death Eaters out." Harry stated watching Remus' eyes.

Their conversation was ended as Hagrid stumbled into the kitchen.

"Will George be OK?" Harry asked softly.

Remus sighed. "I think so, although there's no chance of replacing his ear, not when it's been cursed off."

--//

As Harry sat with Ginny outside he found he couldn't sit still, he fidgeted, twitched and couldn't help but move, he felt like he wanted to be out there…doing something. Simultaneously he felt like he was going to start laughing, perhaps a deep mellowed chuckle, or maybe, maybe a giggle, he let one chuckle out and Ginny grasped his hand harder, he hadn't really realised that she'd taken it, or led him outside.

--//

Fleur had a good point Harry admitted silently to himself and if he hadn't been shaking slightly, coming down off the adrenaline high he probably wouldn't have ignored his previous proclamation to Remus before.

He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket to stave of the chills, his ribs still tender, though he was used to _that_ by now.

"We've…we've got to trust each other." He said after an extended awkward silence that reigned. At the moment accusing each other wouldn't lead to anything. "I don't think anyone here would _betray_ us to Voldemort." He said looking around the room careful not to identify himself as he spoke, this battle had involved all of them.

Another lengthy silence followed before Fred said, slightly unexpectedly. "Well said Harry."

"Yeah, 'ear, 'ear." Said George, though it barely raised a twitch of a smile from Fred who still seemed shell shocked by his brother's injury.

Lupin was watching him oddly, almost pitying.

Harry took Remus by the arm and whispered roughly. "You think I should have spoken up?"

"No, I think you're much like James, who would've regarded it the height of dishonour to mistrust his friends."

"Only in front of them all, if that happens we could all be aiming wands at one another. Best wait and see, perhaps someone will try to kill me again." It sounded slightly humorous in his head, though Remus turned away from him apparently not amused.

Further discussion was halted by talk of retrieving Mad-Eye's body.

--//

"I know you said after Dumbledore's funeral, that you wanted to come with me." Harry began.

"Here he goes." Ron rolled his eyes.

"As we knew he would." Hermione said turning back to her books.

"No, listen. I know there's no point in arguing with you, once you decide something it takes a lot to change your mind." Harry said looking at Ron, his mind wandering back to the Tri-wizard tournament, the first time he felt _really_ betrayed by his friend, he hoped it was the last time. Ron looked away from his wandering gaze.

"So?" Ron said after another of the odd silences that seemed to hang.

"What about your families? I'm a target, you two know that, but what about your families?"

"I…I told my parents…everything." Hermione said after a moment, looking across at Harry meeting his gaze.

She still hadn't told Ron the specifics of last year, but she suspected he knew, they all knew that someone had dealt with a lot of the Death Eaters and not just the 'mysterious people' that had saved a lot of students in the castle. Whenever she had been questioned in the time following the attack after she and Harry had spoken about it there just seemed to be silences where no one wished to ask her if she had done anything to assist in…what she had done. Saving lives. That's what her father had said.

_Flashback…_

Richard Granger looked to her daughter beside him as they drove home from the train station. He knew from her letters that there had been a battle at Hogwarts and that Headmaster Dumbledore had died. That had given him cause for worry, not as much as her first year at the school and subsequent years it was only Hermione's ability to argue a point and her unmoving determination that stopped he and Amanda from pulling her out of Hogwarts and sending her to a specialised school where she could channel her curiosity and thirst for learning in a location that was relatively more safe than a school that kept three headed dogs as guard dogs, or a whole cavern beneath the school with a mythical snake within it. Though mythical had taken on an almost meaningless quality since they'd received the letter informing them of his daughter's abilities.

In previous years his daughter had been talkative, telling him and his wife of all the wonder and danger.

Looking across at her now all she had was a slightly haunted look to her face, sunken eyes that spoke of lack of sleep and ingrained worry.

"Hermione are you…" He trailed off.

"No. Dad. Can I…when we get home, I need to tell you some things."

Much later that night a part of Richard's mind praised Hermione for her speaking to him and not with her mother present also. He had often told Hermione stories of his and his friends time in the armed forces, something she must have recalled at some point during this battle.

Hermione leaned away from him, having cried for a short time about the events.

Another part of him wanted to rage, to shout, to storm up to Hogwarts and grab that, to ask why and how this could happen. How his daughter would be one of the one to defend the so called safest location in Britain.

Though any allusions that it was safe had been destroyed in Hermione's second year when she had been petrified by the Basilisk, and her friend Harry Potter had been severely injured in the process of defeating the beast.

Harry Potter…the boy seemed to have endless bad luck, mixed with pieces of good luck in surviving his encounters.

But now this year, and the previous year when she had faced the wizards in the Ministry, supporting her friend. This year when she had faced adult wizards and defeated them with what sounded like regular explosives, no matter what year they were from. Mr Potter obviously had some very odd friends, even by the standards he had needed to shift his perceptions to.

"Hermione. You saved lives. That's the important thing, you stopped them. They…they would have killed you, and you stopped that." He said after a moment as Hermione settled back into her chair.

"That's what Harry said." She said.

Richard nodded watching his daughter, she was still sitting, slightly tense. He sighed. "There's more isn't there Hermione."

She nodded.

Richard leaned back in his chair. Hermione hadn't really told him much, just more about the war that was brewing and that she wouldn't be home until she'd helped Harry to its conclusion. He still understand why it was solely Harry Potter's job to do this, but Hermione had her determined gaze on her face as she spoke. Hermione hadn't been in the past one to actively break the rules, but often she found justification to bend the rules to get her way to the point where it was as no difference as breaking them.

"So why are you telling me if you don't mind Hermione, I know that look." He smiled. "You've already decided you're going."

"I need you to go into hiding." She said almost immediately. "You've always said that your old 'forces friends could hide a tank in the middle of a football ground. I need you and mum to hide, until this is over."

"From these Death Eater supremacists?" She nodded.

Richard nodded.

"Some friends in UNIT should be able to help us hide away from this war of yours Hermione, as I'm sure there's nothing I can say or do" She looked up meeting his gaze "to stop you."

"No dad. Thank you."

"What would you have done if I'd said no?" He asked curiously. Hermione was nothing if not thorough.

"I…only to protect you…I…" Richard stared at his daughter it was the same look he gave to people who panicked and grabbed the suction tube and backed away into the corner of his surgery when they panicked at the sight of the anthestic needle. They usually backed down. He'd only needed to call the police once when someone had stabbed him with his own needle.

"WasgoingtomodifyyourmemoriesandsendyoutoAustralia."

Richard stared at her turning the sentence over in his mind, it was something Hermione tended to do when she was panicked and guilty about something, speaking very fast, getting it off her chest while dazzling the other person. Though she was his daughter and he knew all her tricks.

It meant, that Hermione cared a lot about them, though slightly devious and of course how worried she was about her enemy and how pear shaped this could all go and it was all Hermione Jean Granger.

_Present…_

"How did they take it? Where are they going." Harry asked leaning against the wall, relaxing slightly upon knowing that Hermione's parents would be safe.

"Dad…took it well, mum…alight." Which Hermione admitted to herself was playing down her mother's reaction a little bit. But after a long late night chat between her and dad she'd come around to not taking her to France or wherever and hiding out somewhere. "I don't know where they are, dad said that was part of it, just his friends in UNIT would sort it out." She looked over at Harry who nodded.

"I'm sure they will be able to hide them away and keep them safe."

"Who are they?"

"Your father didn't say?" he asked.

"Just that they specialise in out of this world stuff, you don't mean…?"

Harry nodded. "And then some."

"What are you two talking about?" Ron asked breaking the odd non-silence between them.

"What about you, your whole family can't go into hiding."

"Go on Ron, show Harry what you've done." Hermione said eagerly changing the subject away from the secret UN based organisation.

"Nah, he's just eaten."

"That doesn't bode well." Harry muttered pushing himself off the bed as Hermione insisted to Ron to show him.

--//

Harry leaned back into the sofa in the living room, the whole house was asleep, exhausted from the day's cleaning and preparation ready for the Delacours arrival tomorrow.

He wasn't sleeping though, no matter how he tricked himself in his thinking, no matter the pain that he'd experienced a part of him had enjoyed the danger he'd felt, the excitement of battle. He hadn't told anyone this, not Remus, not Hermione, not even Ginny, though he suspected that the latter two thought something of him, he'd started to tell Ginny about his experiences, he'd known as he was speaking how vibrant he'd spoken, with a certain amount of excitement that looking back on it he'd heard in another of his friend's voices.

Magister had also spoken in the past of the satisfaction of battle, of succeeding where your enemies haven't, the _power_ that you experienced wielding your influence and mastership over a throng of dissidents or enemies.

Out in front of him was the bag he'd been given by the Doctor the previous year, with many of its weapons and other things still within its multi-dimensional folds.

Hermione said she was creating a bigger and better bag of her own, she said _she_ wanted to make it _herself_ for her and their books, mainly her books that would come in useful on their quest.

Already in his bag were some clothes and other useful things that he might need. In front of him were what was left of the universal vaccines and anti-toxins…those not used on Dumbledore, he stared at them for a moment, wishing they had been able to help Dumbledore more, _"It's a miracle they did that much my boy." "Science Professor." He'd chuckled as Dumbledore seemed to lift up and become more energized after he'd injected the anti-toxin into him_. Even then it had been more of a case of preventing the inevitable.

Harry weighed the scarf in his hand that he'd been given five years ago, despite holding them all up by Fawke there were no marks on it, he'd continued to use it since then, as a scarf, nothing amazing, but it had been amazing on that time. He stuffed it into the bag in front of him, pushing it in between the cans of Nitro-9 that he had left so they didn't rattle against each other. He wasn't quite sure how many he had started out with, but he was vaguely sure that he had less than the amount that Hermione said she'd used.

Sitting on top of his impervious to fire vest and pants was the crystal. White as it was the last time he'd looked at it he picked it up looking through it around in the dim candle light.

It still felt oddly powerful, though he didn't know what he could do with it, annilating the Dementors had been a rush, a powerful one, removing all those dark creatures at once _and_ saving himself retro-actively in the process had also been brilliant. He set it down on top of the vest and jacket thinking to himself, remincising as he pulled over to himself another piece of clothing that he wore occasionally. The stripes along the cloak and its black back made him think of alien sand, the cries of strange birds, a petrified forest and creatures rolling around on static electricity floors, fearing the outside world.

As he ran his hand over the material he heard a noise in the corner of the room, quietly, as the occupant's TARDIS often did the shape forced its way into the space slowly materializing as the shape of an old grandfather clock, seemingly fitting in totally with the Weasley's furniture, yet not quite.

Harry rose as the door didn't open immediately.

Then there was a creak and it did open, though no one came out, he couldn't see anything within the TARDIS the dark void between the exterior and the interior the only think visible, though Harry knew from past experience there wasn't really any sensation of it when you passed between them.

"Magister?" He asked called out softly.

"Ah…how fortunate I should find you." The voice wasn't the same voice he knew as the Magister, it sounded rough, slightly strangled.

"You always seem to find me Magister, you and the Doctor."

"The Doctor?" Something like a laugh, or possibly a cough came out from the darkness. "The Doctor shall be…interned, for all his sins…" Another chuckle, or cough.

"You've gone beyond mere enemies then?"

"I have _suffered_ long from the Doctor's interferences." The voice said angrily, there was a rough sound of him taking in some rough breaths. "You have faced Voldemort once more?"

Harry nodded then said as he realised he wasn't sure if Magister could see him. "Yes, damn Death Eaters killed Moody, injured others." He said angrily, looking over towards the stairs.

"Keep that _hate_ Harry, it is strength. It is one of the things that is all pervading." There was something that could be a chuckle. "Such a contrast to _the Doctor_" The name was spat"that contrast shall be his downfall."

"What happened Magister?" Harry asked taking a step towards the Magister's TARDIS.

"An injury" A figure stepped out of the TARDIS, Harry took a step back, his eyes widening.

The figure looked like he had been burnt, his cloak, such as it was seemed brittle and in parts melted to the figure's body.

He was bracing himself against the side of his TARDIS breathing roughly. Harry forced himself to look up to the Magister's face, such as it was, scarred, melted, his eyes were seemingly frozen wide open, his hands were like plastic. However he still carried himself with power and determination, despite the seeming agony in his movements.

"This is all that is left of me, since _that_ event." Harry didn't want to ask what had happened.

"Why didn't you regenerate?" He asked after a moment, then Magister laughed, or possibly coughed.

"It is far beyond that. But soon, soon, yes, upon returning to my ancestral keep, then, then, all power, a new regeneration and I see my revenges…" He coughed and stumbled slightly. Harry rushed over, forgetting momentarily what the Magister looked (and smelt) like to steady him.

"Thank you. Yes…thank you Harry. I wished to see you, on the eve of your quest, and before I begin mine." He said as he walked back to the door of his TARDIS.

"Thank you Magister. You have been a good friend to me….I hope…" Harry paused thinking about what the Doctor had told him in the past, he hadn't mentioned the Magister too much, but obviously something was going to happen soon to start him on a downward spiral. As he was caught in thought he looked around the room and his eye settled on the white crystal. Vaulting over the sofa he walked back over to the Magister, pressing it into his hand.

"I used this a couple of years ago, I think I told you, against the Dementors."

"The beings that could extract the life force out…yes….I remember Harry." Harry suppressed a chill as Magister fixed his dead eyes on him, he forced himself not to gag at the smell.

"I'm sure this has some of the power I used to wipe them out, I'm don't know…maybe you could use it to sustain yourself, till you reach Gallifrey…as you don't seem to be…" Harry trailed off not wanting to mention his friend's fragile state. In some ways the Magister reminded him of Dumbledore, still powerful, upstanding even in his weakened state. Determined.

"Up to my usual standard, no…" He ran a finger over the crystal. "Yes, there is some power at the atomic level. Not a new body, but perhaps, something, a relief for my revenges." He whispered to himself looking down at the crystal. "Yes…Harry this is most fortunate that you should have a hand in the Doctor's downfall." Even though his face was charred or set in ash he could tell a smile, or elation. The creeping chill continued. As he looked at the Magister once more and realised that that he was some what shorter than he was, now that they were standing closer.

"Good luck Magister, with your endeavour."

"And to you Harry Potter." He said as he stepped back within his TARDIS the door creaking as it closed, Harry watched as the Magister's TARDIS quietly disappeared from the lounge room leaving only the unpleasant stench of decaying and charred Gallifreyan flesh hanging in the air.

--//

The rain had stopped and he was sitting outside around a small fire, warming his hands, it was a short distance from their tent, just in case someone turned up. Someone he couldn't _just_ kill.

Perhaps it was true what the Magister said, not his last meeting but previously, your friends betray you.

He thought Ron had out grown it, this…his need to…Harry couldn't process it into words, it was just a seething emotion within him.

Then there was a crack, not of apparition, but of a branch breaking, nevertheless it snapped him out of his angry gazing into the fire and into full alertness.

Standing carefully he looked around him, the night was all pervading at the moment and he couldn't see further than a meter or two from the fire, he could just see the outline of the tent.

_SNAP!_

Harry searched around the him, twisting rather than moving his feet as he searched around him. He looked scanning around him, searching for an irregularity in the darkness.

Suddenly he saw something, he could have sworn he felt his heart jump up and start to beat faster, the fight or flight responses kicking into high gear.

The killing curse was on his lips, he could imagine Hermione admonishing him for having that particular spell on his lips, but they had long, long gone past the point of using stunners.

"Avada…" He started quickly as a figure stepped out of the trees shaking off a black umbrella with a red handle on it.

"Really Harry, is that any way to greet and old friend?" Said a voice with an odd Scottish burr, a man he'd met before, who had also met Hermione the year before.

"Doctor, I nearly killed you."

"That's the problem with weapons." He muttered. "Or the wielder's intent." Harry could tell he was staring at him even though he couldn't quite see his eyes.

The Doctor sat down opposite Harry, the fire the only noise between them.

Harry looked at the Doctor, he had changed his outfit since their last encounter, he now had a red waistcoat a tie and a brown coat on. Though his hat was jammed haphazardly on his head as it was last time. Also now that he was closer he could study him more closely…he seemed older.

Which was especially odd as he'd already met the 'older' Doctors, who were actually younger in appearance than this Doctor.

They sat in silence for a short time before Harry asked about Ace.

Harry leaned back smiling upon hearing of Ace. "Time's Vigilante. I wonder if I'll meet her again?" He asked looking at the Doctor.

"Perhaps Harry, perhaps."

They were lulled into another silence. Harry sat staring at the fire, he chewed his lip, a question he had been wondering to himself, something Hermione had asked him. He hadn't really had a good answer for her, except 'he's always on time.'

"Doctor…how did you know to arrive when you did and to be so prepared when you arrived and helped Hermione last year?" He asked watching the Doctor.

"Perhaps you told me in the future."

"Maybe." Harry said digging his hands in his jacket, the old UNIT jacket the Doctor had given him all those years ago, it still fitted, which was an oddity, but it was one he was willing to live with as it was warm (though when it was hot it was a light jacket also) and had infinitely useful pockets. "But let's say I've met your future and I didn't mention it because…" He trailed off watching the Doctor.

"Because it was in your past." He murmured.

"I was thinking about something the Magister said a while ago, that even at the academy you were a devious one. Nothing on him though" He said with a smile watching the Doctor look uncomfortable. "But devious nonetheless. Was he right Doctor, are you devious?"

"Is a baker devious for knowing when to bake extra loaves for the holidays?" The Doctor wondered to himself.

"Is a Doctor devious when he turns up just when trouble starts?" Harry asked poking the fire.

"Harry…" The Doctor started.

"Was" Harry stopped. "Is the Magister right, are you a devious Time Lord Doctor?"

"There are so many possibilities that exist in the universe Harry, so many different paths that can be walked, to step on the correct path is complicated. Events need to be guided."

"Ace said you liked to do the manipulating thing, Skaro, Gabriel Chase, the Validium…" Harry looked over to the Doctor who was watching him as he trailed off with a sigh. "Time's Champion, that's what Professor Summerfield said you called yourself."

"Everything needs a champion." The Doctor responded.

"When did you know?" Harry asked, looking into the fire suddenly feeling tired with everything.

"Know?"

"About all of this could you…could you have stopped the deaths?"

The Doctor was silent for a time, he didn't really know how long.

"No."

"But you did know that they would happen."

"No Harry…I knew…I know about some of the things that have happened, that were integral to the timeline….but…"

"But?" Harry looked up from the fire.

"While on Gallifrey during that business with the Sontarans I had a chance to open my mind to the Matrix and saw the possibilities and future open up, you had more than your share of futures and possibilities."

"Okay." Harry said unsurely, he recalled only vaguely the Doctor mentioning in the past something about Gallifrey and Sontarans.

"You have almost as many timelines as me, quite a feat. But I knew I could help more, in such a small way, friendship is such a delicate thing."

"How?"

"I made myself forget…" He then muttered to himself. "The demat gun will do that." Before resuming a regular level of voice. "And much later left a message for myself to meet you, to begin our friendship."

Harry really wasn't sure how to feel about this piece of information, but knowing it…it didn't really change anything, it did but there was one thing. "What if I hadn't known you?" He asked after a moment of thought "Would Sirius, Cedric…Dumbledore…would they still be alive? The Magister once said, when you turn up people die."

"He also killed people Harry, lest you forget that." The Doctor countered immediately.

"But he never lied about that Doctor, setting out to kill someone is very different." Harry said cooly, after all what did he have ahead of him?

"No…they would still have died had I not been in your life Harry." The Doctor said after gazing into the fire for a while, it seemed like a dark shadow had passed across him, a deep sense of worry and regret. He seemed to begin to think about saying something, but then didn't.

Harry let the silence hang for a while, a question bubbling within him, a curiosity since the Doctor mentioned it, the concept of 'what if'. "So what would have been different, what other possibilities were there for me, my life? Doctor?"

The Doctor looked at him for a moment and then smiled a gentle smile and told him.

By the end of it Harry was laughing as he hadn't for a long time, it didn't matter if the Doctor was lying or there really was a possible future out there where he'd shacked up with Professor Snape to be his lover, it still put a whole new light on everything.

"Harry?" He turned Hermione was walking over to them.

"Ms Granger."

"Doctor? Harry and you alright?"

"Yes…yes I think I am." Harry said looking over at the Doctor as he rose from where he was sitting.

"Time for me to leave I think."

"I..." He was cut off.

"We." Hermione interjected.

"We'll walk you back to the TARDIS."

"Very well." The Doctor said looking between the pair. It felt like such a long time had passed since he had seen either of them.

"So where to now?"

"Skaro." The Doctor muttered.

"I thought you…"

"An old Kaled name meaning home, the Daleks never were original."

"Why?" Harry asked, Hermione was standing a respectful distance away as they talked by the doors of the TARDIS.

"_Our_ old friend the Master has been put on trial." The Doctor replied.

"By the Daleks?!" Harry asked incredulously. "Why'd they do that?"

"Sentence was passed" The Doctor continued ignoring his question. "He made a request that was granted, that I take his remains back to Gallifrey."

"_They_, the Daleks granted it? Didn't you say he went a bit odd the last time I met you?" Though Harry thought to himself he was looking less than healthy the last time he'd met him.

"He is still a Time Lord, and a friend Harry. Even in death he is dangerous, it will be best to get to him before the Daleks get curious." The Doctor said opening the door.

Harry grabbed in a hug. "Look after yourself Doctor."

"And you Harry…and you. Remember friendship endures, even if they sometimes don't know it." He said stepping away from him. "Good luck and good bye Ms Granger." He raised his hat to them both and stepped into the TARDIS.

Harry barely noticed as Hermione stepped up to stand beside him as the wind drew up around them as the TARDIS disappeared, leaving them once more alone.

"What was all that laughing about?"

"Just…just the idea of me in Slytherin shagging Cho Chang."

"What?" Hermione spluttered, or quite possibly gagged.

"That was my reaction, but you have to laugh." He said feeling vitalized for the journey once more.

"There's also the idea of Ginny and Draco Malfoy to scrub out of my mind." Harry said casually as they walked back to their tent. His spirits lifted for the first time in a while.

--//

"_And quite honestly, I've had enough trouble for a lifetime."_

Harry stood at the entrance to Hogwarts, the sound of cheering, of laughter, of relief pouring out the Great Hall behind him.

Hermione and Ron were also standing behind him he could sense so. While they were talking to the portrait of Dumbledore he'd just decided to walk out, to look out across the grounds, to smell the air, and look out across the sky.

He fancied for a moment that he could see a space ship in the sky, or perhaps it was just a cloud.

Despite his weariness, his lack of sleep and the fact he had escaped death he still felt slightly energized, even though he wanted to crawl into bed. He wondered if this was how the Doctor felt when he regenerated. He looked up to the sky again, maybe he could just put his thumb up and hope for a ride. He raised his thumb up to the sky a quirky smile on his face as he did so.

After a few moments someone coughed behind him.

"Er…Harry what are you doing mate?"

"Trying to hitch hike." Harry said turning around.

"Where?" Ron asked again a little slowly giving him an odd look.

Harry turned around, looking vaguely upwards. "'_There are worlds out there were the sky is burning, the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream, people made of smoke and cities made of song…'_" Ron walked around in front of him as he looked around gesturing upwards.

"What Harry?" Ron looked on at Harry before looking back at Hermione who smiled conspiratorially.

"Something a friend told me." Harry said and laughed. He wasn't sure why he was laughing but it soon became infectious and they were all laughing together, hysterical, relief filled laughter.

--//

_Notes:_

_I changed how Hermione deals with her parents partially because I felt that while Hermione altering her parents memories (in DH) was a big emotional choice it also seemed quite a large abuse of power on her part._

_There obviously is a suggestion now that her father was in the armed forces (there is one line in the previous chapter that also suggests this). I think Hermione now is more considerate and more mature, and has experienced far more than in the original DH. So Hermione's parents are being hidden by UNIT or some subsection of it (probably in an old Cold War era bunker) or something._

_For the Magister (the Master) he visits Harry at some point just before __The Deadly Assassin__. _

_I hadn't intended to include the Master when I began to plan this chapter, but after I started to think about it I decided to include him once more. I haven't wanted to include the Anthony Ainley version of the Master as it has some awkward themes of possession (that teamed with Harry's experiences wouldn't work too well). So moving along through the Master's life, as with the Doctor this is the next Master who turned up. He's a bit more mad, and horribly burnt with quite a bit more of a grudge against the Doctor. _

_There was a scene that I imagined, but it didn't make it to the final cut where the Magister gives Harry a personal chameleon shroud, which makes him appear to look like the Master that he knew previous to this (the charred) one. It was to replace the over used Polyjuice Potion at the wedding, but I couldn't make it fit nicely and it would have necessitated re-writing large chunks of the wedding chapter yet it didn't really add anything to the story, it was just a nice image Harry as the Master wandering around Bill and Fleur's wedding as the Master. _

_Harry and the Doctor's meeting._

_It was always going to the Seventh Doctor, it's the seventh book after all. But it was also the Seventh Doctor that started the friendship (the Seventh Doctor in the Virgin New Adventure novels was often leaving notes for himself) and generally being a bit devious and manipulative. _

_For the Seventh Doctor this is immediately before the TV movie (I have the Doctor paraphrase the opening monologue). _

_I didn't want to go too meta-referencing through the various styles of Harry Potter fan fic, but I thought I'd drop a couple in there as 'alternate timelines' of Harry._

**This isn't the last chapter.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

He could hear the blood pumping in his ears as he ran through the forest ducking under or just rushing through the branches that were in his way. As he came up to a fallen tree he vaulted over it hunkering down for a moment allowing himself to catch a breath, listening to the cold silent night.

There wasn't anyone following, not any_one_, not that he could hear, for now anyway.

Pushing up his sleeve he glanced at his watch. 10:30 pm. It was December 31st 1999 and he could have been anywhere.

But here in this cold Welsh forest, his blood pumping and slightly out of breath was where he wanted to be.

He could have been anywhere, even now more than a year later people in the wizarding world showered him with praise wherever he went.

He hated that the most.

He'd been _officially_ invited to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes (Exclusive Party Event) with Ron and George, he wasn't sure what the difference to an official invitation and being invited was, but supposedly there was some level of exclusivity that he didn't appreciate, Ron though did seem to like the idea of it the last time they'd met together.

He had needed to make a concession regarding New Year's Eve, Ginny hadn't asked where he was going to be but he _had_ to be at their party for the New Year's Eve countdown. As in _dire_ consequences if he wasn't there.

Hermione on the other had hadn't even blinked when he'd told her about needing to skip their pre-New Year's Eve drinks they were going to have at her rooms at university. That was something she seemed very happy with, ever since she'd gone back and got her NEWTS she'd somewhat despaired at the options within the magical world, even with the reforms that were going through Hermione had said it wasn't what _she_ wanted to do. _"Like you Harry. I'm going to make my own path."_

Hermione was much more decisive about where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do.

He on the other had had a vague idea, but hadn't really done much about it for a while.

_Flashback…_

"_And quite honestly, I've had enough trouble for a lifetime."_

It had been a little under two months since he'd defeated Voldemort and the owls still hadn't stopped.

He'd (in a moment of sleep deprivation caused by the ceaseless owls) considered shooting them. But instead he invested in a magical stamp that overlaid the words 'The recipient your letter is addressed to no longer resides at this address' onto the letter when the owls landed at a perch with a food supply on it of dried meat. Then he'd tell them 'return to sender', or very occasionally 'bugger off I don't want to attend your bloody party for your buggering celebration of the cruking end to the bloody war!'. Though he hadn't said that _that_ often. At least not _too_ loudly.

That had slowed them slightly. At least now they seemed to get the idea; land get a free meal and piss off.

The only owl that knew how to get through the 'blockade' was Ginny's, her letters were embracing, funny, it was odd, she had said going to school where there wasn't an evil wizard in the background _and_ that she was going out with the most famous wizard in the world.

He missed Ginny, and he was pretty sure he could if he wanted walk straight into Hogwarts and sweep her off her feet.

But that would involve beating back the hordes at Hogwarts, he had disliked his fame before, before…well before everything that had happened. Now he really detested it.

* * *

Having a holiday was not agreeing with him.

In fact he hated it. Being in the middle of London, being able to go out, have 'fun' or what people considered fun just didn't do anything for him.

He'd got used to the excitement of battle, the rush of adrenaline, the danger.

He'd only told Hermione about this.

Despite his closeness to Ginny, Hermione and Ron were the only two who had experienced everything of the past year, and Hermione really was the only one who'd had a look into the some of the other things behind the scenes.

Harry stared out the window again looking at the owls, occasionally he'd see an owl that was beige-white, reminding him of Hedwig, Hagrid had even suggested that he could get another owl. But Harry had thanked him, but no. He didn't need another owl, there were enough people sending him owls for now, and if in the future he needed to send anything he would find an alternative means.

The time of sending post and owls was in the past.

He turned away from the window and slipped on his jacket, glaring at the window for a moment longer and disappeared in search of some excitement and that spark of an idea he'd had a few years ago.

* * *

_Present…_

Harry peered over the fallen tree, straining to hear the sound of the _things_ legs against the forest floor.

What he did didn't have a name, though neither did what Sarah did, though at least she'd been able to give him some pointers on how to start.

* * *

_Flashback…_

He'd tried parachuting, skydiving, fire arms training, driving fast cars, flying in a 50 year old fighter plane and a variety of other things that were meant to get the adrenaline flowing.

No wonder the Doctor always seemed most excited when he was describing the last time that he'd been in mortal danger Harry thought to himself as he went walked down another street towards his destination.

All the things he'd tried over the past few months all the while trying to avoid the adoration of the wizarding world had been fun, but it didn't beat the excitement he'd felt most recently.

Admittedly that had involved a fist fight with an alien which seemed to twist through dimensions he couldn't comprehend. It also meant that he had admit again he had a 'saving people thing', which just meant Hermione got to be smug at him once more.

It hadn't finished with a fist fight, he'd been shot at and managed to wound the alien and stop it from kidnapping a group of witches and wizards. He'd made himself scarce after that, he didn't need _another_ round of 'lets praise Harry'. Maybe that was why the Doctor didn't stick around for the process after liberating whomever he liberated, or it was probably to avoid difficult questions. Last he heard the wizards and witches whom he'd assisted had put the whole experience down to a dodgy batch of butterbeer.

Harry looked around for a street sign, he really needed to get a car he decided.

He could have apparated straight outside her house. Sarah Jane Smith's house to be precise. But he'd wanted to get the location of her house and the area cemented in his mind.

She had said she'd hoped to meet him again at some point. He'd read some old articles she'd written and she seemed like someone he could make contact with concerning…everything.

* * *

_Present…_

Harry listened and prepared to leap over the log as one of the creatures launched itself over the log.

His knife was already unleashed and he started stabbing it wildly. Spells were useless against these…bugs. Though they seemed to have a taste for it, which explained why they were around so many wizarding areas especially when there was a lot of magic flowing around the holidays. New Year's would be the last opportunity for a while to get at them, after this they'd probably go back lying low and only attacking small things.

He just hoped he got them all, that was the point after all, using himself as bait to lure them out.

Harry stuffed the knife back in his holster vaulting over the log and pulled the around from his back. He didn't really want to use a gun, but the hordes that he needed to deal with there wasn't much choice, the only other thing he'd considered was a long blade, a bit more dapper, he was sure the Doctor would have approved. But the gun was more practical, he was relatively sure as he squeezed the trigger of the semi-automatic that the Doctor wouldn't have been so approving of his choice of weapon, or how he'd decided to deal with these bugs.

Though the weapon was doing its thing. The little critters were dying and he was barely feeling the cold air with the rush of control that he felt over the situation. Harry gave a hard kick to one of the creatures as it made for his foot.

He stopped firing to reload, that was when he heard another person firing and shouting.

Harry cursed to himself, he'd deliberately chosen this area for their desertedness and took off at a run through the middle, of the thinning crowd of creatures when he bumped into someone.

"Hey there." Said an American voice, Harry spun around as he heard the click clack of the bugs again and began firing once more, his back to a man in a long coat.

"Captain Jack Harkness?" Harry shouted over the noise of his and the Captain's weapons.

"Who wants to know?" He shouted over his shoulder.

"Harry Potter." Harry shouted as Jack stopped firing. Harry continued to fire at the small movements in the mass of dead creatures, then he turned around.

"Harry Potter, you beat your Dark Lord then?"

"I did at that." Harry paused looking around the mass of dead creatures. "So what's a nice captain like you doing in a Welsh forest like this?"

"I could ask you the same thing Harry Potter." He said with a smile.

"I think you know what I'm doing here. I didn't know this had attracted Torchwood's gaze." Harry watched Jack's wandering eyes, fix him with a stare.

"How do you know about Torchwood?" He asked suddenly.

"Torchwood doesn't make any secret of it's dislike of the Doctor, I thought it was interesting." Not to mention their somewhat unhealthy interest in the magic world Harry thought to himself.

There was movement in the pile of bugs. Jack let off a few more shots from his gun, the shots echoing in the night air.

Harry took a moment to check his watch. 11:00pm.

"So" he said rubbing his hands together. "Can I give you a lift?"

"A lift?"

"I've got a party to get to you've got to get back to your secret base now that we've dealt with these bugs." Harry then quirked a sly smile. "Or was there some other reason you were hanging out in the woods?"

"Harry Potter, are you flirting with me?"

"I don't think my girlfriend would appreciate it Captain."

"Call me Jack."

"Fine Jack, would you like a ride." Harry jabbed a hand backwards to the edge of the forest where he'd parked.

"This is your ride?" He said, surprised.

Harry nodded opening the butterfly doors and climbing into the centrally mounted driver's seat, placing his gun on one of the other three.

The car he'd bought in a brief moment of what Hermione called 'insanity' he liked to think of it as a moment of excitement and rebellion.  
It was a rather fast and expensive piece of rebellion.

But his McLaren F1 felt a lot more exciting to drive than just apparating somewhere.

"Just here." Jack said as they approached Cardiff. It didn't look like an entrance to a secret base, considering it was a petrol station, and the only interesting thing it had going for it at the price of petrol.

"Ya didn't think I was going to show you the entrance to my secret base did ya?" He grinned as he got out.

"I can hope."

"Look after your self Harry Potter and maybe we can catch up some time."

"Now that I'm legal you mean?" Harry asked.

"Now that you can handle a weapon. I'm sure we can have some fun." Harry laughed, Jack smiled and swaggered away.

Harry was blissfully happy that the party wasn't being held in London as he got out of his car, it was interesting he wasn't the only person to have arrived by car. Ginny had just said there was going to be some friends from Hogwarts present.

"Is that blood?" Ginny asked eyeing a splotch of fluid on her boyfriend's trousers as he took her in a hug. He had at least made it, with 10 minutes to spare. Probably a new record for him.

"Don't worry it's not mine." He said. Too casually. His arms also smelt like gunpowder.

Ginny twisted herself around in her boyfriend's hug to face him as they swayed to the music that was playing around them.

"I want to know." She said firmly.

"What?"

"What you keep getting up to, I'm not a little kid anymore."

"I don't think we have been little kids for a long time Ginny." He said in a low tone as they locked eyes.

Ever since the Chamber she'd not thought of herself as a child, now with everything that happened that sort of childish thinking was so far in the past she wondered if it ever existed.

"I want to know what that blood is, I want to know everything. No more secrets."

Harry smiled at her, his eyes shinning with mischief. "After the new year's celebrations."

"Why then?" She asked glancing over at the large clock that ticked ever closer to the new year.

"The 21st century's when everything changes, we've gotta be ready."

"What?" She asked.

"Something a friend told me."

"Is this the same 'friend' you and Hermione have met?"

"No." he shook his head. "This is a flirtatious Captain."

"A what?"

"Let's just enjoy the new year okay?" He said and then whispered. "And later you can worry about the alien blood on my trousers."

-/

A/N:

_The Jack and Harry part is in reference to the Torchwood episode __Fragments__, where (in flashback) Jack mentions something fighting a "Millennium bug" which had "It had 18 legs stacked with poison". Which occurs somewhere around 31__st__ 1999._

_Thanks for reading._


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

"So what do you think?"

Hermione looked at Harry as they walked around the homestead.

"What am I supposed to think Harry. It's a house."

"It's an estate, a homestead and significant land." He said gesturing around the newly constructed or rebuilt buildings, Hermione wasn't sure which.

She wasn't going to admit it to Harry but she didn't know much about where they were, close to Land's End, but that was about it.

"We're in Porthcurno, or somewhere close to it." Hermione glared at his answering her unspoken question..

"Where's Ginny? I thought she'd be…enthused to spend some time with you, I haven't heard much of you since New Year's Eve. When you stood me up."

"I was fighting aliens!" Harry said stuffing his hands into his jacket.

"And Ginny?" Hermione asked; concerned, crossing the short distance between them to gage her friend's expression.

It was a pained, annoyed expression.

* * *

_Flashback - 1__st__ January 2000_

Ginny appeared on the balcony of Harry's apartment, his note crumpled in her hand. _'I'm at my apartment. You drank a lot. I thought it best not to wake you._' She remembered why she had drunk so much, just those two words 'alien blood' had frightened and scared her more than anything she had experienced, that those words, with such conviction had come out of her boyfr-, out of Harry's mouth, she couldn't understand it.

* * *

Aliens were something that muggles made up to explain magic, her father was often telling her about incidents in the ministry.

There were even some wizards who believed in 'aliens'. A chill ran down her back, just at the thought of them. Mum spoke about it once or twice, but no one ever really talked about _them_.

They didn't even bother with St. Mungo's. Usually there wasn't anything that could be done for them, often they left the wizarding world and went off and 'became' squibs.

There was no such thing as aliens, everyone knew that. Except muggles, but that was magic.

She had thought Harry knew that as well, Hermione had never mentioned she thought aliens were _real_. She thought Hermione knew better, more than that, she could recall telling Hermione about crop circles and how they were created and that quaffles were what muggles thought of as UFO, Hermione had said it stood for 'Unidentified Flying Object', at least muggles had got that right.

But aliens…no wizards no _sane_ wizards even entertained the idea.

Ginny took a breath and knocked on the sliding door. Harry had asked her not to apparate into his apartment, which was why she was knocking on the door outside.

Inside she saw Harry look up and say loudly. "Come in, it's open!" With a smile.

Ginny twisted the note she had in her hands into a tighter knot and stepped in.

"I think we need to talk." She said looking over at her bo-at Harry as he walked over to the kitchen area, seemingly making some tea.

"Yes, we probably do." He said with a smile. "Is it about my shoes?"

"Your shoes?"

"Yes, the projectile vomiting on my shoes." He paused and then added. "Though they're more boot than shoe I suppose."

"No." She said, twisting the note in her hands again.

"I quite liked my shoes. Good thing they're water proof."

"No it's…" He cut her off again.

"Or was it when you were clawing at my pants and slurring something about blood?"

"It's…" She started again, twisting the note further in her hands.

"Not that I didn't think that was a bit odd, but you were drinking a lot of shots." Harry said with a smile, he placed a steaming cup in front of her.

"All I said was that it was alien blood. You…" She held up her hand.

"There's no such thing as aliens Harry!" Ginny almost shouted.

He blinked.

"Of course there are."

"No, no there aren't, that's just muggles." She shook her head.

_Present…_

"And then what?" Hermione asked. They were sitting in a courtyard that was shielded from the wind, the sun keeping them relatively warm. Harry had somehow produced a thermos of tea from a pocket, made to Harry's unique preference black with something like a spoonful of milk giving it a deep dark colour that wasn't quite black tea.

Harry took a sip and sighed. "Then she told me I was lying about aliens, I showed her my pants." Hermione made a face.

"I was in the middle of washing them, trying to get the blood out, it was rather viscous." He said at her look to him.

"Then…?"

"She said it was some potion or something." He paused. "Then she called me insane, I said she was being close minded. She accused me of being delusional." He sighed again. "I showed her the device I used on Ron."

"The one that healed him after" She paused and looked at Harry. "After what happened at the Ministry?"

"Yeah." He nodded.

"And. I can see that wasn't of human or at least human now origin." She said. Harry nodded. "Then she said I was being a stupid muggle."

"Oh."

"And I said I was, that at least some muggles believed in aliens."

"Oh." Hermione said again, looking into her tea frowning into its murky contents.

"Then she said only the deranged believed in aliens."

"Okay." Hermione said slowly, unsure what to say, but saying something seemed right.

"And I said that deranged and insane basically meant the same thing."

Hermione stared at him. Harry shrugged. "I thought it would lighten the mood."

"You thought it would lighten the mood."

"Repeating what I'm saying isn't helping Hermione."

Hermione sighed and made a 'go on motion' with her hand as she drained her cup.

"Then she made to grab the device and told me that to give her anything else, that she was going to get me 'cleared up'."

"That makes it sound like a…" She trailed off as she thought about it. "Like a drug addiction or something. I guess you didn't take to that idea did you? Considering who gave you that, and the other things?"

Harry shook his head. "He's been a friend to me for a long time Hermione, I wasn't going to let her destroy things like that over…I don't know what…" He sighed.

"Did her 'legendary temper' flare up?"

"Ron's said something about that has he?" Harry smiled, Hermione looked over at her friend, it was a ghost of his true smile. "She then shouted at me to give it to her. I told her no. She drew her wand on me. Her wand. On me."

"I thought you'd be used to that by now Harry?"

Harry nodded slowly. Perhaps duplicity was a Weasley trait, he kept that thought to himself though.

"Then I asked her to leave. She kept pointing her wand at me and tried to levitate the device to her. I may have sworn at that point and grabbed it back and put it in the cupboard with my tea. Then she swore at me, called me some things."

Hermione opened her mouth to ask what things, but it was a bitter look on Harry's face that stopped her. "Then she said 'Don't you ever come after me Harry Potter' and she disapparated."

"Oh. I'm so sorry Harry." Hermione on impulse threw her arms around him drawing him into a hug.

Harry hugged her back and for a moment was quiet and then said. "I just…I just wasn't expecting the reaction I got."

"What?" Hermione drew back looking at him.

"Howlers, a lot of them." He shook his head. "You did Muggle Studies."

"For a year." She countered.

"Yeah."

"While using a time turner." She glared at him.

"Hey what's the glare for?" Hermione just shook her head.

"You're the friend with a time traveller, you could have told me!"

"I…I…" Harry just sighed shaking his head smiling.

Hermione handed him back her cup and crossed her arms. "Well?"

"Was there anything in it about aliens or why Ginny went…"

"Was a little mad." Hermione offered diplomatically.

"I was going for bat shit crazy Hermione, you didn't have to sit through the howlers, one exploded, I had to get the glazers in to replace the windows."

"Oh Harry I'm…glazers?"

"The windows on the apartment, I don't think my rental agreement covers howler explosion." Harry took a breath. "I actually found her craziness enduring, some of the time." He said in a moment of reflection.

"Are they still coming?" Hermione asked after while listening to the wind around them.

"No. Tenacity is something else I liked about Ginny you know, two months of letters, howlers and her popping in once or twice. The crazy…" Harry swore under his breath.

"Language there's a lady present."

"Sorry Mistress." He replied sarcastically. Hermione hit him lightly on his arm.

"You wound me my lady." Hermione glared at him. "Just promise me you'll never do anything like that."

"I don't think you and I will ever be like that Harry, in any case you don't have any bombshells to drop on me."

"In an alternate universe I'm married to a half-Veela Draco Malfoy and he's had my babies." He said after a moment.

Hermione coughed and then blinked and then swore.

"Language."

"Language my arse Harry Potter, what did you just say?"

"In an alternate universe I'm…"

Hermione waved her hand to stop him. "No I heard it the first time. This is what you talked about with the Doctor, that last time?"

He nodded. "I asked him about alternate stuff. It's amusing don't you think all these alternate versions of yourself out there…"

"How would that even work?" Hermione decried after a moment of thought and a shudder, probably at too much thought of the intracises of it.

"-ucked if I know." Harry said, his words stolen as a car horn alerted them to its presence. "That'll be the agent." He said getting up.

"Agent?"

"Final walk around before I sign the papers."

"You're buying this place?"

Harry grinned and nodded.

* * *

Hermione leaned back against the tree, it was nice, having a peaceful day with a friend. Harry had extracted a picnic basket from his car, obviously Harry couldn't be simple and apparate, that was too _boring_ for him. Admittedly she appreciated 'muggle' forms of transport also, though being able to apparate did mean she could leave her rooms just before her classes.

"How is your study going by the way?" Hermione looked sharply over to him and wondered how he had known she was thinking about that, or it could just have been that was what they'd been chatting about in a general sort of way.

Hermione's shoulders slumped. "It's been hard." She admitted after a while. "Cramming my A Level study and testing as well as my NEWTS, it was hard."

"Least you got some paperwork from the Ministry to help along the way." He offered.

"You wouldn't believe the paperwork, bureaucracy at its most pathetic." But she was doing something she wanted to do. Not stuck in some meaningless job in the Ministry. She was pursuing something interesting, something fascinating.

Harry started to repack the basket with the empty plates and the blanket they'd been sitting on.

"But you're enjoying it?" He asked.

Hermione thought for a moment, it was hard, difficult and challenging. But yes, she was enjoying it. "Yes."

"What about you Harry, you've been saying you've got an idea. Now you've got all this what are you doing?" Hermione asked as they reached his car.

"Well…" Harry began.

* * *

Hermione leaned back into the racing seats of Harry's car a McLarnen F1 he had said with a grin, she made a mental note to look it up on the internet when she got back to the university.

His idea was as large as it was localised, and tied into what he'd experienced so far. As he'd said "After New Year's Eve I realised what was needed. That _they_ can't go everywhere." But…

"How are you going to pay for it?" She blurted out after some silence.

"That's been my thought, I'm going to hit the government up for some money."

Hermione snorted. "Good luck…especially given…" She trailed off, not wanting to say Ginny's name, _if_ that was how wizards reacted to the _idea_ of aliens. It would be an interesting research topic, if she could publish it somewhere that people might appreciate the historical analysis.

"Hermione…?" She shook her head.

"Sorry Harry, caught in thought. What did you say?"

"I'm going to take your path."

"How's that?" She looked at him in the rear view mirror."

"Bombard them with research and information and hope they'll give me some money to get rid of me."

It was a good thing glares couldn't kill Harry smirked to himself and decided not to look in the rear view mirror for a while.

Though Harry thought to himself, he would also use the Doctor and Master's method, devious confusion, in equal measure.

* * *

He walked through the Ministry, he even had a reason to be there, with papers and everything.

He still hated the praise and fawning that everyone felt they need to show him.

He really wished they wouldn't.

In fact as he stepped into the lift and jabbed the button for the Minister's office he really, really wished they wouldn't stare, even the letters seemed to be looking at him.

Or he could just be being paranoid.

"The Minister will see you now Mr Potter."

Harry entered the office, it was much like other offices in the Ministry, just with a larger desk, filled with various scrolls, and of course there was the Minister, who was actually working behind said desk.

"Mr Potter."

"Minister." Minister Shacklebolt gestured the chair opposite the desk.

"Your letter was rather oblique. What is it you wanted to see me about Mr Potter?"

"I'd like to speak to you about an issue, which you may or may not have noticed has been increasing in the muggle and wizarding worlds."

"That is?" The Minister asked leaning back against his chair studying the young man with the piercing green eyes. He was sitting calmly in the chair, yet still held himself with a degree of tension, tension from the numerous battles the young man had fought. Plus there was the surviving the killing curse, twice. Kingsley considered that Harry Potter would never live down killed Tom Marvolo Riddle; Lord Voldemort.

"You worked for the muggle Prime Minister didn't you Minister?"

"Yes Mr Potter. I did for a time." He said in a neutral tone.

"Did you ever hear mention of the United Nations?"

"On occasion." The Minister looked at Potter, wondering where he was going. The dance of politics was something he was slowly getting used to, but Potter was being oddly cryptic, more so than he expected from him.

"What about UNIT?" Potter asked curiously.

Kingsley didn't betray any knowledge, but he knew that Potter knew what UNIT was. He only had brief contact with the UNIT people, _muggle military_ that dealt with 'other things', things best left alone.

"How about Torchwood?" Potter asked again and smiled as he tensed.

"What is it you know Mr Potter?" He asked, continuing his level tone.

"Probably more than you do Minister, more than people want to know…" A slight pained expression was across his features for a moment.

"Mr Potter?"

"Aliens, Minister."

"Aliens." He repeated, a tightness in his voice, his hand hovering over his wand, a wand he used more for paperwork than any major spell use. Only the 'truly befuddled' started to speak of aliens and mean it. Torchwood, UNIT, they all liked to pretend they knew about aliens, but he always was told to know that it was magic.

Potter was leaning back in the chair, a calculating expression on his face.

"Please Minister, be reasonable." Potter's eyes flicked across to where his hand was poised over his wand.

"Mr Potter, I think you should leave, before…"

"Before I say the A word again?" Potter opened the back he had brought in with him and grabbed a flat muggle folder and pushed it across the table.

"What's this?" He asked opening it with his left hand, keeping his right hovering over his wand.

"Evidence of non-terrestrial bugs attacking a magical community in Wales, they were eliminated on New Year's Eve, 1999."

Kingsley felt a chill go down his back, he had read a report of attacks from Magical Law Enforcement, but they didn't find anything, they put it down to random attacks brought on by holiday revelers, people conjuring out of control beasts, or something. He hadn't given it a second thought.

There were photos, muggle photos, he shook one to be sure.

"This isn't the first time either." Was all Potter said as he removed similar folders, with more information. "Some of these just affected Muggles, but wizards have often gotten caught as well."

Harry watched the Minister as he removed more and more proof out of his bag, said bag was given him to a person the Minister probably didn't want to exist.

"Where did you get all this information." Shacklebolt, Minister Shacklebolt asked in a tight voice.

"A lot of it from Muggle research, freedom of information and all that. Headmistress McGonagall was nice enough to allow me to use the Hogwarts library to research some older things, the Prophet was surprisingly useful back in the day."

* * *

Kingsley wanted to take his wand and stun Potter, though considering how relaxed Potter was he wasn't sure what Potter would do.

That said often wizards who started ranting about wizards left the world quietly, they soon learned they were delusional.

But Potter didn't seem to be delusional, Potter seemed to be very sure about what he was saying.

That was what was worrying him, but everything in front of him could have been fabricated. He'd seen Magical Law Enforcement come up with some convincing documents to enforce a memory modification if the individual was particularly quarrelsome.

Potter was still sitting relaxed in his chair.

"Still not convinced?"

Then he removed the creature from his unfeasibly small bag and hauled it into his desk, crushing several scrolls in the process. He had to shove his chair back.

The speed at which Potter had done this was interesting.

* * *

Harry smiled, coolly as he stood at the desk.

"Wrapped and packed for you minister."

"What…what…is it…?"

"An alien."

"A…." He stuttered.

"A dead one." Harry added.

Kingsley sat back down into his chair, it was pushed up against the wall, where he wanted to stay.

"Put it away." He said keeping his voice level.

"Don't you want to take a look? Poke him?" Potter asked in a hurt tone as he poked the _plastic_ covered alien.

"Put it away!" He said in a louder tone.

Potter smirked, Kingsley fancied that Potter was enjoying this display of a _wrong_ thing, a thing that _didn't_ exist.

"Very well."

When the…when the object was gone Kingsley regarded Potter for several moments.

Potter didn't seem aware of what he was doing, what he was saying, what could happen to him if…if he sent off a letter or fire called an emergency word.

"What do you want?"

"Funny you should ask." Potter smiled at him, Kingsley was reminded of a kneazle grinning at its prey.

Kingsley tensed as Potter withdrew another folder from his bag.

It took him several minutes to read the proposal.

"You want money?" He asked incredulously. Potter inclined his head. "You could work within the Ministry." He started. Potter snorted.

"You were ready to lynch me Minister."

"So what is this?"

"An independent group. Funded partially by the Ministry." Potter said.

"And that's it the Ministry pays this and what, you won't…" He trailed off.

"Annually." Potter said. Kingsley stared at him, Potter stared back and nodded.

"Why should I trust you Potter, you are after all a mad man." His hand was still over his wand.

"That's what previous Ministers said Minister, look how they turned out." Potter's tone suddenly went from cool to icy.

"Is that a threat Mr Potter?"

"No. But to answer your question. You should trust me because I know about aliens, and what's more I'm willing to do something about it."

"Or you could be trying to swindle the Ministry out of money Mr Potter. You're not the first one." It sounded like a joke, but it wasn't bribery and blackmail was still rife despite the changes he was slowly implementing.

"But I would hazard a guess that I am the first one to bring detailed proof including a non-terrestrial life form into your office."

"Non-terrestrial?"

"Alien." Potter raised an eyebrow as he grabbed his wand. "I could have you removed Potter."

He stared at him for several moments. "You worked in the muggle Prime Minister's office Minister, I'm sure you overheard things, unbelievable things. Britain's got Torchwood, the UN has UNIT, what have we got?" Then he smiled at him. "Even if I am delusional, can you take the chance that a delusion might become real?"

-/

_Notes:_

_I hadn't plotted out the main parts of this chapter before I started writing it. But when I started to think about Harry and Ginny being together or rather __not__ together._

_And it's the not working that kinda lead me here._

_In an abstract way I kinda came to the concept of aliens, I haven't actually mentioned them specifically all that many times, with other (wizarding world raised) wizards around. Hermione and Harry were muggle raised (plus Harry's known the Doctor and the Master)._

_But it was this idea that came to me about how wizards might react to the concept of aliens, or the belief in the concept of aliens. _

_The wizarding community is often shown as a microcosm of the 'real world', intensified and enhanced. It struck me that the most weird person with the oddest ideas was Luna, but she was still accepted within the world, everyone thought she was a bit odd, but there was no real ostracization, no attempts to change behaviour. _

_Which meant for me there was something worst than what Luna believed in, something so taboo that it would…totally pull apart people._

_The concept of aliens has only been touched on as the examples in this chapter, crop circles and an escaped quaffle as a UFO (which is mentioned somewhere in the books)._

_Given how the wizarding community reacts to various 'other' elements I think it would be relatively reasonable for the wizarding community to react as Ginny does upon encountering people who believe strongly in the existence of aliens. Ginny is the rule rather than the exception.  
_

_After all, there's been plenty of alien incursions on Earth (and in London especially) and most regular people don't believe in aliens (even before 2005 there were plenty of alien incursions in England) and the wizarding world is smaller with less cultural influences to draw upon to influence how they'd deal with aliens. _

_Ginny will probably return (sorry Ginny haters), but it's going to be a long non-canon road for Ginny._

_Thanks for reading. _


	13. Chapter 13

---

**Chapter 13**

Harry wiped his sweating hands on his jeans as they touched back down onto solid ground.

He _wished_ it came as easy to him as learning to fly a broom.

Sadly not, this needed study, practise and time. Shutting the door to the Cessna which he'd been informed by his instructor was as old as him, if not a little older, he grinned to himself. There was still something exciting about it, something that flying a broom didn't give him.

Maybe it was the fact that a broom didn't have a canopy, an engine and controls.

Not that there wasn't something amazing about gripping a broom and using touch, sensation, control, to manoeuvre it around.

According to Jack it was _"kinda sexy"_.

_Flashback…Mid-March 2000_

Harry sat on the bench looking around Roald Dahl Plass, waiting, it was a sort of nice day.

If you defined nice as rain, wind and a general impression of fog hanging over the bay area, then yes it was a very nice day.

"Harry Potter." Said a voice behind him that was distinctly American, in a way that a man couldn't be a American because of where and more importantly _when_ he was from.

"Captain Jack Harkness." He drawled in a tone that probably would have rivaled someone who once claimed to be his 'rival' albeit schoolyard rival.

Jack came around and sat next to him, he was in his what Harry was beginning to think of as his trademark outfit of a long coat, shirt, army boots, it was he consisted rather fitting. Though odd that he had practically the same outfit on now as the first time he'd met him.

"How'd your meeting go, feel like telling me why you needed the bug?" Jack asked looking out across the plaza.

Harry shrugged. "Not yet, but thank you. Where do you want him?"

"You hang on to 'him'." He turned and smiled at Harry.

Harry sighed. "So what do you want? You said you'd think up a suitable trade for use of him, even if I did help bump off most of them."

"All on your own when you should have been with your lady friend, new year's eve."

Harry didn't say anything, he didn't want to think about his 'lady friend' at the moment, he was enjoying the rain, wind and cold he didn't want the thought of his 'lady friend' to spoil the mood.

"I could just owe you a favour." He offered, taking a breath of the air in, he could smell the water particles in the air, it was, oddly invigorating. Probably aliens. Or a dragon flying overhead and pissing into the clouds knowing his luck.

"Hmm a favour from the great Harry Potter." Harry looked over at Jack who grinned and winked at him.

"Something I'm sure someone of your position would value." Harry said seriously.

"I think we're beyond favour Harry Potter. How about dinner?"

"Dinner?" Harry repeated. The proposition had come, not quite out of left field, but somewhere around the middle, of the cricket pitch.

"Start of a friendship."

Harry shrugged. "One traveller to another."

"The Doctor never said you _travelled_."

"Time, life, death it's the stops in between that make a person." Harry said with a shrug.

"When'd you become so philosophical about this Harry Potter?" Jack asked, Harry had noticed he had been fixated on him since he'd mentioned death.

"Since I died, tell you about it over dinner? Meet you here, 8 tonight?" He asked in quick succession. Jack nodded as they both stood.

Harry grinned and gave him a mock salute and disapparated.

_Present…_

It had been interesting having dinner with Captain Jack Harkness, he'd had lunch with him one time after that as well.

It was like talking with Sarah, someone who knew the Doctor in all his weirdness and oddness. Jack had plenty more 'wild' stories than Sarah did though.

Jack also seemed to want to know about the Doctor, about the Doctor's _future_. Though future Harry reflected was a relative term, but from what he'd been able to gather from Jack he hadn't met the Doctor whom he'd met after the Triwizard, after the Doctor had _rescued_ him after the Triwizard, or any of the other Doctors for that matter.

Which gave him pause for thought, and ultimately he'd decided _not_ to tell Jack about the Doctor's future.

It was the 'Web of Time' as the Doctor used to say, or perhaps it was about foreknowledge and everything. In the end he'd just told Jack 'He'll find you, or you'll find him when the time's right'. He'd known it was a bit of a cop out but some things just needed to happen as they happened, Harry wasn't going to interfere with events in his own past concerning the Doctor, but the Doctor's future, which was also his future.

Knowing a time traveller was confusing.

Harry stepped down into his McClaren F1 parked in the Land's End Airport car parking.

It had been something he had been thinking about even prior to his first meeting with the Shacklebolt. But now that he had some time to wait before he could get his 'idea' engaged he had some time to kill.

Flying had always seemed so easy, jump on his broom and fly, it had almost been instinctual. In contrast his learning to fly a plane and his preparations to learn to fly a helicopter were anything but instinctual, it was taxing, complicated and difficult.

Though still exciting when the little Cessna lifted off the ground of the grassy runway.

Driving down the driveway and parking outside his house he smiled. He'd chosen this property with it's nicely proportioned buildings and land, some of it he was leasing to his neighbours allowing them to farm it at a very low price at that. They'd been happy, he was happy it was in use, but the rest of the buildings would be of use.

"This is the site of the League…" He trailed off. He'd been forced to call his organisation a League.

In his subsequent (and last according to Shacklebolt) meeting with the Minister he'd been given a contract to sign and to nominate a bank account which _had_ to be a muggle bank account oddly.

Both the name and the bank account were according to the minister, of anything a tax requirement.

So he'd been forced to call it a league.

So Harry Potter was the creator and leader of; League of Paranormal Investigations.

It sounded official enough, and didn't have the word 'alien' in the title, which had seemed to pacify Shacklebolt somewhat.

Plus it was a name he could register in the normal world without any issues.

_When_ he got the money from the Ministry _then_ he could _officially_ begin.

Something else that had involved a normal bank account was his parents money.

It had, according to the Goblins been accumulating a sizeable interest for the amount that was there.

Though, they were none too pleased when he'd decided to withdraw a sizeable amount of that sizeable amount to deposit in a 'muggle' bank account. His reasoning had been simple enough, the wizarding world was smaller, therefore the system to invest in was smaller, he hadn't seen any evidence (aside form money conversion, of an interoperation between them). Which he'd made a mental note of that raised some perplexing questions.

It was when he was opening a bank account for himself and his organisation that he'd got a surprise.

A curious one at that.

At least he'd reflected later it wasn't a nasty surprise, one with fangs, spikes or semi-automatic weapons. Though considering the surprise came in two envelopes he would have been surprised if it had contained all of those things.

Those two letter lead him to digging around in the records of an undisclosed (though publicly accessible as long as you absolved the government of any responsibility if you got trapped in said library and the walls collapsed in on you…or something). The first letter related to a provision for funds made shortly after the Intrusion Counter Measures Group was formed in the 1960s, the name on the provision was one Doctor John Smith, it mentioned a 'League' headed by one Harry James Potter. Harry wasn't sure what to think of the Doctor knowing he formed the League before he did, though it was possible that the Doctor found out after he'd formed it, in the future and then went back and made sure that he had access to said funds to make sure it happened.

How the Doctor kept track of all his plots and subplots he didn't know.

The second letter pertained to military support for (a Mr Harry James Potter) the provision was signed and initiated by Air Chief Marshal M. Merit Sagamster. It had made him quirk a smile, Magister obviously didn't credit the people looking over and approving these things with much intelligence or imagination.

--//

Finally, a month into the financial year (for muggles and wizards) he got a letter from the Minister. Informing him that the League of Paranormal Investigations could begin 'operating'.

_Except_ according to their agreement it didn't exist, Harry Potter _wasn't_ receiving and money from the legally elected Magical government and they certainly weren't paying money for a delusional organisation to investigate things that didn't exist.

Yet he still had to wait until a month into the financial year to begin, a tax and legal requirement. It was odd, he'd never thought about the complexities of the wizarding world until now, Harry supposed as he drove along the roads leading out of greater London that there had to be some way a government was funded and tax was the way it was done, more or less in the muggle world. The wizarding government could _just_ be run on bribes and favours, though despite Kingsley's reforms he guessed the wheels of government were still very liberally greased with the money of the older families.

Harry leaned over grabbing the map off the floor next to him and looked around out the window.

He was he hoped somewhere close to Dallington in East Sussex, looking for a house, in which he hoped lived a man, whom he hoped was at least as mad and delusional as the _Prophet_ claimed him to be.

The house was rather unassuming and completely normal, if not for the things he noticed. The larger than normal satellite dish he caught sight of through the trees as he approached the house and the what looked like a half size Quidditch pitch in a paddock near the property, then there was the large power transformer box on the side of their property, he only recognised that because _he_ had one at his house.

It was odd Harry thought as he unbuckled his seat belt, that he now had a house, of his own, he'd never really considered his apartment his, especially now that the lease was up on it, his house was definitely in Porthcurno.

This place was definitely a home though, lived in, homely, in an odd way reminiscent of the Burrow, Harry smiled to himself, pained slightly at the thought of it.

"Yes?" Asked a man in his late 30s, a light brown pony tail tied back behind his head. "Who are you?"

"It's been a while since anyone who was remotely connected to the wizarding world asked me that." Harry mused with a smile. "Harry Potter."

"Ioan Hrycek?" Harry asked, watching the man's eyes dart around past him and down the garden path, he couldn't quite tell but it seemed like he was staring at his car.

"What do you want?"

"To talk about aliens. And the wizarding world." The man was looking at him suspiciously and then looking around carefully. Harry turned around, looking at his car.

"Is it okay to leave it out there, or is there a logistics company that transports pianos that's likely to drop one on top of it?"

"What?" He stared back at him. Harry grinned.

"Aliens, wizards, they exist." Harry removed his wand from his pocket twisting it between his fingers. "People pointing sticks, potions…you know…"

"You'd better come in Potter, it's been a while since anyone spoke to me seriously about the wizarding world."

Ioan Hrycek's kitchen was homely and practical, out the window he could see several large vegetable patches, off to the side of the room was a pot belly stove, a medium sized cauldron resting on it.

Ioan Hrycek's name was one of the names that he'd found mentioned in some old issues of the Prophet. A Hufflepuff who'd also been an avid Quidditch player for the team, though the paper hadn't said what position, he'd completed his NEWTS in that year of Hogwarts when he'd tried to publish an article to the _Vision_ supposedly a high brow magazine that used to be published by the _Prophet_'s publishers.

It had supposedly suggested that several wizarding deaths during the 1970s had been the cause of alien invasions of London and in one case a family of wizards who'd been killed by a dinosaur.

Harry hadn't been able to find the original article anywhere, though he knew that Ioan had been right, it was a dinosaur, in London, a bit of a mad scheme, more than mad actually considering the planning and everything that went into that…

They'd been having a friendly enough conversation in his sitting room, when Ioan had looked at the clock on the wall sworn under his breath and said;

"I'll be back in a few minutes." Then with a slight displacement of air he'd disaparated. "Make yourself at home."

Which is why Harry was looking through the music collection on one of the shelves of the room, an odd mix of records _like John Smith and the Commonmen_, cassettes and CDs one of which by a group interestingly in his opinion called '_The Sugar Quills'_ he was perusing when he hear a pop from outside the room.

"And you left him in the house?" Said a female voice, Harry guessed it was his partner or wife. Ioan had mentioned he had kids and

"He isn't a Ministry spy, _when_ have they ever been bothered as long as I don't try to publish anything, and what was I supposed to do? You get snitchy if I leave you too long, waiting around."

"Akilina, he knows things, about aliens, the real events."

"And he doesn't think you're mad?"

"No. _You_ don't think I'm mad do you?" Ioan asked.

Harry put down the CD, deciding to ask them about _The Sugar Quills_ later and wondered across the room.

"You know I don't _I've seen them_ remember?"

Harry knocked gently on the ajar door between the rooms. "Thought me being the centre of your conversation I should say hello, so you know whether or not to throw me out, shoot at me or engage me in theoretical conversation on the nature of time travel and predestination." Then he held out his hand. "Harry Potter."

"Akilina. Now Mr Potter, Ioan says you believe in aliens. Come on you can help with dinner and explain _everything_." She shook his hand and led him back to the kitchen, her tone of voice made it clear that he didn't have any room to argue.

It wasn't until later in the evening that they really got around to asking him what he wanted, Harry gave himself a pat on the back that he'd managed to deflect that particular question for quite some time.

"I want your help, currently my group."

"Your League." Harry nodded to Akilina, whom he'd found out was a chemist who worked for company that provided additional workforce for various areas, supposedly at the moment she was assisting a forensic chemist in something or other. He'd asked what, but she just shook her head, contracts, privacy and whatever else, which had ended that line of attempted discussion.

"You know about UNIT right?" Harry asked, trying to get into his pitch, Ioan had mentioned it about his researches. "They don't know about wizards, or if they do they seem to treat them the same way the British government does. So the League of Paranormal Investigations is all about investigating and defending against alien incursions, but also helping out aliens if they've crashed into Hogsmeade or whatever."

"Why not, if you don't mind me asking just let the wizarding world face it?" Ioan asked. "I see what you're saying but you said the minister wasn't happy to see you."

Harry smiled. "Hardly. But…" He trailed off. "You know about the Black Thursday when the dummies came to life in the 1970s and the Daffodil Scare in the 70s?"

"I remember reading something about it, I think my parents mentioned something about it." Akilina said.

Harry nodded. "Both those were aliens, the same aliens in fact. Anyways, the Nestene they brought these plastic dummies to life, killed a few people in the streets, but they also killed a few wizards who were out at the time, their bodies were recovered by muggles. But after it happened the ministry tried to cover it up, all of it, and ran straight into UNIT and the army."

"Who shot the Ministry law enforcement and who ever else." Harry nodded to Ioan.

"Thinking they were aliens. The ministry didn't do anything about it because…"

"There's no such thing as aliens. See this is why being a 'squib' is good, no wasted life like this." Akilina poked Ioan gently on the arm with a smile.

"That's not the worst thing. These daffodils that were around, they were also plastic."

"These 'Nestene' used plastic?"

"So I've been told." The question by who seemed to hang for a moment so he pressed on. "They were handed out everywhere, and some of them found their way back to potions suppliers. I don't know the specifics, but some were processed into potions ingredients others interacted with other things…supposedly there's still some of it out there."

"Is it poisonous?"

"From what I was told they were originally designed to spray a mask over the face, suffocating the people. But that's all past now, in theory they're just plastic flowers, but incredibly realistic and alien."

There was a relatively comfortable silence as they digested this information.

"How do you know this Harry, how did you manage not to be lynched."

"Aside from my 'Boy-who-lived' 'guy-who-defeated-the-Dark-Lord' status you mean?"

Ioan chuckled. "I need to start reading the _Prophet_ again."

"I wouldn't, it's still mostly rubbish. But to answer your question, I know an alien, a time traveller."

There, he'd said it. He knew it would come up eventually if he started talking about all these things that _had_ happened and more to the point his foreknowledge about things that were _going_ to happen.

They actually accepted it more easily than he thought they would, and didn't press him for any information.

"I'm not mad." Harry felt he needed to add.

The pair in front of him shared a smile. "That's what we said the first time we talked about this stuff seriously Harry. I've heard of other people who've time travelled, not with time turners though."

"No, there are far more complicated ways of time travelling." Harry said.

--//

Harry settled into the car seat as he drove back to his house, Ioan and Akilina had offered him to stay, but he rather liked driving, even in the dead of night.

They had his phone number and they'd agreed to get the details sorted out of the hows of the League, Ioan had said he had continued to keep an eye on the fringes of wizarding society, on the 'delusional' elements. Though he and they had been so far on the fringes had been missed by Voldemort's brief reign.

--//

"So this is it?" Hermione asked looking at the large double doors. There was a shocking face carved into it.

"The Doctor never said where it was. You're the one who asked me about it."

"I asked you what you knew about a rumour the Mona Lisa was a fake and you told me a wild story about aliens and time travel!" Hermione turned away from the door looking at a small notebook. "One might think you're obsessed." She said with a smile.

"I am, maybe not obsessed. But it's something to do. I've got a good memory for these things." Harry looked up at the building. "So shall we break in and have a look around?"

"Harry!" Hermione hissed at him.

Harry mouthed a 'What?' At her. There was no one around them. It was oddly quiet in this area of Paris.

"Well, or is looking at the door enough for your project?"

"This isn't a project I asked you about it and…oh never mind." Hermione said after a moment. "What did you have in mind?" She said with a tone of resignation. "I'm going to regret this aren't I?"

"We could always go back the Louvre and look at the fake Mona Lisa."

Hermione shook her head. "I've had enough of that for one day Harry Potter, it's real, the paint is real, it is the age it should be."

"Doesn't change that it's a fake, a real fake, not the original."

"Do we apparate in?" Hermione asked, stopping Harry in one of his moments of musing to himself.

"Wasn't it you who went on at us about apparition and knowing where you're going to turn up? Who knows what's in that building?" Harry looked around, removing a pair of binoculars from his bag and looked around at the roofs before pointing. "Up there, we should be able to find an entrance and break in."

"Into an alien's lair."

"Former, dead alien, lair? When you become so dramatic Ms Granger?"

"I've to be dramatic Harry Potter, to stop you from doing something dramatic to get your adrenaline up."

"I never…come on let's go."

Breaking in hadn't been so hard. The place looked empty and unlived in, things seemed to have been left mostly as they were, but there was evidence of fingerprint dust around and tracks left by wheels, probably from a gurney he thought to himself looking around, he saw Hermione moving towards the open documents by the bookshelf.

"Hermione. Stop."

"What Harry?"

"Here." He handed her a pair of latex gloves. She glared at him.

"How did you know to bring those?"

Harry shrugged. But Hermione grabbed the gloves out of offered hand.

"I wonder why this place hadn't been cleared out, it's been empty since…the late 70s." Harry mused looking around. He smiled to himself, he could just imagine the Doctor lounging in this chair, being threatened…by the beast that lived in the cellar. He grinned.

"Have you got your amazing bag handy?"

"'Harry Potter and his amazing bag', not really the tag line I was looking for for myself and the LPI."

"Just open the bag Harry and stop blathering." Hermione shivered.

"Something the matter."

"Other than the fact we're wondering around in a dead alien's house."

"Well I've been standing here and you're going through his documents, I assume since we're pilfering what look like priceless documents there's something useful."

"For you and me both, I'll need to look at it closer when we get back to England." Hermione was busy carefully sliding old tomes, papyrus and other things she'd glanced over into his open bag.

"What are we doing down here Harry?" Hermione asked, they'd both just apparated to the cellar, a lot of it had been gutted by fire, including the stairs.

"Not sure, I wanted to have a look around, just in case." Harry said looking around with his wand illuminating them.

Hermione removed her own wand from her pocket as she glanced around. "Lumos." She whispered.

"Any reason you're whispering?"

"Do you feel it?"

"Feel what?" Harry said in a low tone, he was standing with her looking at what was probably the beginning of the fire.

"A weird sort of…"

"Sort of tingling, just near the base of the spine." He asked in a curious slightly foreboding tone.

"Yes except, it's more of an itch."

"Yes…I had a theory about that." He said in a level tone looking around.

"You did?"

"Come on, let's have a look in the back."

Harry pointed his wand around the room, it like much of the cellar had been practically destroyed by fire.

"What were you expecting to find in here?" Hermione asked, a step behind him.

"My own Mona Lisa?" He asked kicking the ashes aside. At the very back of the room were the remains of a cabinet. "Doesn't this look like a cupboard that could have held pictures?"

"Hmm." Hermione said joining him looking at the charred remains.

"Could be anything Harry."

"Adventurous aren't you?"

"Something about being down here, don't you feel it?"

"Yes, it's the after affect of localised concentrated time field experiments that were done here."

"Are you just spouting rubbish Harry or…"

"Is that what you used to do at Hogwarts?" He mused in the middle of her sentence.

Hermione continued unchallenged. "Do you actually know what you're talking about?"

"Mostly I know, time travel's still an interest, the Doctor said some bloke managed under guidance to build a temporal experiment here. I was curious."

"You were curious. What about the Mona Lisas?" She walked around into his field of vision.

"There is a blank wall where a genuine replica of a painting would sit really nicely." He sighed. "I guess I'll just have to paint it." He kicked aside some fallen debris, pointing his wand around at the ground, just ash and bits of wood. "Fine, let's do one last check of the château before we leave, we don't want to come back here I would imagine."

"Breaking and entering once is enough Harry." Hermione said as they apparated back to the corridor that lead down to the stairs.

Harry smiled as Hermione ordered their meal and what sounded like a nice red in fluent French.

"I see all those trips overseas with your parents taught you something." Hermione blushed slightly.

"I'm not all books you know Harry."

"I know. So does Ron know you're wining and dining with me, and of course the breaking and entering."

"Harry!" She looked around, no one was paying them the slightest interest. "I didn't know we were going to be _looking around_ like we did."

Harry shrugged and sipped his mineral water. "And Ron? I haven't spoken with him since Ginny, well you know."

Hermione shifted, slightly uncomfortably. "We've…" She paused. "We've decided that during this time of…" She sighed. "He said I was spending all my time at school, and I said he was spending all of his time at the shop and…" She shook her head sighing and taking a sip of her drink. "We're seeing how we can manage without the _expectation_ of being together." She looked over at Harry's concerned expression. "We both had…things to do, with Ron working with George and me at university we both wanted to see each other but it was as though we were meeting because it was expected…or something." She sighed again.

"Relationships are tricky things" He said then muttered. "A bit like gelignite."

"What would you know about explosives Harry?" Hermione asked, a slightly worried tone in her voice.

"You're the one who was chucking around the Nitro-9!"

"That you left me!" She countered.

"I just thought it might be useful to work out how to make my own, just in case, though reverse engineering explosives are not as easy as you might think."

"You…"

"Theory only Hermione." He held up his hands. "Isn't that the best way?"

"Until the theory becomes reality Harry that's when it becomes dangerous." Hermione said looking around the restaurant as she finished her drink.

"We live dangerous lives Hermione, in dangerous times."

"A bit ominous Harry."

"I was going for dramatic."

--//

_Author Notes:_

_Sorry this is another 'world building' chapter. There's a bit of set up to this story to allow me to do what I want with this and I need to set a few things in motion to do so, hence some info dumping. This will (I think) be the last of the slow introductions of people, everything following this I can introduce on the fly, but I needed to start off with one person._

_I have, over the course of writing this chapter and planning the next couple been considering, just…well writing Ginny out, so she doesn't actually come back, maybe a space ship lands on top of her and she is turned into the consistency of a fine chutney, maybe she gets exterminated by a Dalek, maybe while flying a kite with a man who has a fascination with cheese and a rocket in the cellar she falls off a cliff where he remains are picked at by polar bears._

_But that would be easy, I could write those incredibly easily (I think I could also do a convincing 'distraught Harry' scene to go along with whichever variation. But that's really the point, it would be easy enough for me to kill off and write out Ginny, but it's much more of a challenge to re-build her character as a complex character who isn't all the things that makes her annoying._

_I don't like Ginny, I also generally don't like the Harry Ginny pairing, this is why I wanted to write the pairing because it's a challenge to make it work, even if I have to work really hard to make it work, I want to try. (And if I get to the point where I can't, then I will drop a giant anvil propelled by TNT onto her)._

_Hermione and Ron…they haven't broken up, but they're going to have a rocky relationship for a while. It can't be all smooth sailing._

_Special interactive feature time for everyone reading (and reviewing); Hermione drinks a drink here (it's not named what), suggest a drink for her, it can be alcoholic or not. If I like it then in a future chapter she'll be drinking said drink._

_Thanks for reading._


	14. Chapter 14

----

**Chapter 14**

Something acrid was creeping down his esophagus. It was a creeping acrid scent, mixed with a horrid sensation that seemed to stimulate and irritate his gag reflex, making him want to vomit. Something he _couldn't_ do.

He could in fact actually vomit at the moment, but at the moment, it would probably make him choke, and here and now was not where he wanted to choke on his own vomit.

_10 Days Ago…_

Harry turned the letter over in his hands, it had come to him via a mail redirection service he'd managed to find and setup. He knew that something like it had to exist, there _had_ to be wizards who wanted privacy but still needed an owl address and considering the service existed there were obviously wizards who needed their owl mail directed to a muggle address. Which made receiving mail quite blissful, all the letters were simply re-stamped with a charm directing it to him and sent through the British Postal system. He did briefly wonder if the Royal Mail got anything out of this, but they had to, given the proprietor's credentials he'd seen within the shop front he'd visited.

It worked, that was the main thing, no owls, nothing, his official address was somewhere in London as far as owls were concerned.

The letter, wasn't even that in the conventional sense, there was no addressee, no friendly introduction, nothing like that.

_Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures_

_Disposal and Waste Management Sub-Division, Office of Waste Management_

_At your earliest __convenience__._

Convenience was most definitely not what it was, it looked like it had a very angry line underneath it. It probably meant something like 'I might as well get my money out of your Potter you delusional bastard'.

Though Harry mused as he grabbed his jacket and wand he could have been reading too much into those 23 words.

Walking outside his house he stared at the building that held his car and shook his head. He wouldn't mind driving to London, but parking in London was tricky and getting a parking spot near the ministry was nigh on impossible.

"The boring method it is then." Harry mused aloud, then frowned, shaking his head and with a small displacement of air disappeared.

He had been directed to Level Four where Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures was located down a narrow corridor, where again he'd been directed (by a sign rather than a person) down another narrow corridor and now he was walking down a narrow and steep spiral staircase.

Maybe he mused as he walked down the stairs the Minister was trying to kill him and make it look like an accident. It was possible, though Harry doubted the Minister would come up with such an elaborate method to get rid of him. Maybe Kingsley was harbouring a twisted sense of humour and sending him down to the Office of Waste Management was precisely how he wanted to get rid of him.

At the end of the stairs he arrived in a room he totally wasn't expecting. On the way down the corridors had either been brown or black, more often than not highlighted with a morose shade of grey. Down here was quite the opposite. The walls were a calming light blue, with several paintings of calming vistas, though he supposed that other paintings could communicate down here, but as they hung here they gave the room a rather open, calm feeling.

"Hello?" He said looking around. All this calmness had to be hiding a beast of unimaginable terror.

Or as it turned out a witch who had been with the ministry for 60 years 40 of them with the Waste Management department.

One that was rather concerned with the spate of house elf deaths that had been going on recently.

_And_ she had been expecting him, or someone at the very least.

He had to ask though, considering events of the recent past and all. "What happened to you when Voldemort was here?"

She blinked looking at him for several moments, and for the briefest of moments the quiet lady whom he'd been talking to disappeared and a slightly different lady seemed to creep out of the corners of the room, or it could have just been her eyes.

"Rubbish still needs to be taken care of and there are some _very_ loyal house elves that will remove any rubbish that happens to trip down those stairs, a pity, this room was such a nice shade of yellow. Times change though."

"And blood is so hard to wash out." He couldn't help but comment, it didn't exactly lighten the mood, but it did break the ice and the weird lighting effect she'd managed to generate with her presence alone seemed to have disappeared.

Or perhaps he'd just imagined it and it was just the power of her words that had tricked him into thinking that.

Harry decided he'd have to practise his 'skills' Magister had taught him more often.

She'd taken him over to a side office where a large map was affixed to the wall, it marked out several Xs over a space of…he couldn't actually see a key showing how large the area was.

"So this is where…" He trailed off waiting for the lady, who still hadn't told him her name, though he hadn't introduced himself either, which was a little bit odd, maybe she expected him to know her, maybe the fact that he was expected meant that names weren't necessary.

Or maybe he was over thinking this.

"These are the Waste Disposal sites for the all members of magical community in mainland Britain."

"The isles have separate site?" He asked looking at the map, trying once more to judge its size.

She made an affirmative noise, then said. "Theses sites are located in an isolated cave system, each chamber is linked centrally."

"And people have been dying there?" He asked looking back to her.

She made another affirmative noise but didn't say anything further.

"I think you need to explain to me how this is managed." He said eventually as he began to realise he really didn't know anything about where 'waste' went.

It was actually a rather enlightening conversation, considering the topic. She led him back to her office where a house elf appeared almost the instant they walked in looked around and disappeared, reappearing a moment later with a tea pot and two cups and disappeared without a word.

It was all a little bit odd, as neither of them touched their tea. _If _it was tea, he hadn't wanted to pick the cup up, the tea put just sat there, steam coming out of its spout as she explained to him how the wizarding world dealt with its refuse.

Most small house holds composted much of their waste through various means. But each house hold generated some waste that could not be composted or burnt in the fire.

These items were things like magically generated packaging, potions ingredients, damaged and broken things and other 'not of use' items. These were taken by house elves (or if the house hold did not have one, taken to a waste management centre or picked up via an elf working for a waste management business) and disposed of.

Only house elves could get to the waste disposal sites through magic, due to the high levels of magical refuse any wizards that attempted to apparate splinched themselves, and there was _no_ possibility of rescue. He'd asked about portkeys, but she'd said something about being smeared like jam across a large area, which sounded less than pleasant (and gave him a very odd mental image; quite disturbing).

So the waste disposal sites were the landfill, the rubbish tip for the British wizarding world.

It really wasn't something he thought about, sitting in potions, chucking out the left over potions ingredients, or clearing up Grimmauld Place and putting things aside to be thrown out, none of it really connected, back in the day for him, as to where when you threw stuff out it actually went.

'Obviously it has to go somewhere' He could imagine Hermione saying, though he wondered if she'd find it interesting that it was so simple.

"Hang on." He said speaking up. The woman looked over at him, eyes full of curiosity and something else, he wasn't sure what, possibly suspicion, he couldn't work out why though. "How long has the wizarding world," He corrected himself on that one. "The mainland British wizarding community been dumping, I mean disposing of its waste here?"

The woman leant back in her chair, a slight smile on her face. "Since wizards really began to embrace commercial shopping, around the time the Leaky Cauldron was built."

Harry blinked, he was sure he knew that, it was on the tip of his memory…but the lady supplied the information for him once more.

"1500."

If he'd been drinking the tea or whatever it was, he was sure he would have choked on it.

"1500." He repeated. "To the same sites."

The woman nodded once again.

"They must be bloody big sites." He finally said. Five Hundred Years. The number was big, really big. He'd been to a rubbish tip, he'd seen how big they were, he'd seen how much people in the muggle world chucked out. Even if that amount was half, or a quarter…it still didn't add up as he thought back to the map he'd seen, unless the site was really big, really, really, big.

Or magical rubbish broke down at an alarming rate, which begged the question why it wasn't done at the wizard's homes, which he asked the creepy lady with the undrunk tea pot and weird eyes.

"Many families do, but what is taken to the waste disposal sites is too dangerous to dispose of at their residences. Or would take far too long to breakdown." The she added. "Many potion ingredients when they pass beyond their usable period become severally dangerous and need much time to break down."

Actually Harry decided she wasn't all that creepy, it was just the very calm way she was speaking to him, almost like a teacher.

"And now house elves are dying?"

"Yes, some haven't returned from their scheduled dumps, some have been in service of house holds for many years. It has been most distressing for all involved."

"I can imagine." He said. Thinking. "So some have died after returning?"

"Some, yes, it hasn't been spoken of, they saw it as their failing that they couldn't continue their duty till their end of days."

"I'll need all information you have about the deaths. Have any wizards died, investigating the deaths?"

She nodded. "One, a waste management intermediary he managed a business who picked up from smaller house holds without a house elf. He was found on the edge of the site."

"Okay…what happened to him?" He asked she pulled a flat piece of parchment off her desk and passed it to him, as he leaned forward he caught a smell of the steam coming out of the tea pot, it didn't smell of anything, which was odd.

It looked to be a form filled out by someone in Magical Law Enforcement.

The parchment listed the man's name and profession.

That the body was found and transported by house elves back to his manor.

It stated that nothing could be ascertained about the man's death due to acute levels of potions residue and magical contamination throughout his body.

It stated his body was cremated due to the contamination levels in his body. This order was signed by the Minister for Magic; Minister Shacklebolt.

Which was obviously why he'd been contacted.

Harry wondered how much the Minister knew, in fact he wondered how much normal wizards and witches knew. 500 years, was a long time to be dumping in the same place.

"I'll also need the location of the waste disposal site." He said placing the parchment in front of him. She looked at him worried.

"You can't apparate in or…"

He cut her off. "I know."

"Muggle transport can't approach the site either, the magical residue prevents any _mechanical_ muggle inventions approaching. Brooms and flying carpets cannot approach it either."

"Marvellous." Harry said, exhaling. "I'll think of something."

A few minutes later he had a pile of parchment and various copies of the maps of the waste disposal site in a box the lady had given him.

As he was approaching the stair the woman called out to him.

"It was interesting meeting you Mr Potter, I do hope you can sort this issue out for us." Then she was gone, disappeared back into the depth of the office.

Weird, as Ron probably would have said, if the presence of the odd cobweb around hadn't freaked him out. That and the rather odd lady.

_Present_

Harry thumbed the control on his suit increasing the flow of air into his suit, he hoped that would keep out whatever it was that was seeping in. _How_ it was getting through the suit and the oxygen mask he didn't know.

The people he'd bought this suit from had ensured him that it was protect him from nuclear, chemical and biological agents, it was acid resistant, pathogen proof (he was carrying the bloody heavy oxygen tanks just to be sure).

Yet _still _something, something acrid, some sort of rising stench.

_If_ he vomited he would most likely suffocate. He couldn't pull the oxygen mask off, the air was very much toxic and that was just the less worrisome part of what the air was.

If he did vomit, then he'd need to get the gloves off, get out of the suit and get at the mask.

But first he'd have to get out of the thigh high…sludge.

_9 Days Ago…_

Harry leaned back in his study/workroom/office it was basically one of the larger rooms of his house where he had most of the paperwork and his computer for the League of Paranormal Investigations. On the computer screen and laid out in front of him were aerial surveys of the last 60 plus years ago right back before World War II, on the screen were further updated satellite very low resolution going back to the British space programs of the 70s and all the way up till now.

What annoyed him looking at all of this information, combined with recent within the last year aerial surveys was that the resolution never improved.

The 'magical tip' as he was calling it as 'waste disposal site' wasn't something that rolled off the tongue, or even the mind as he thought it to himself. 'Magical tip' was a lot simpler.

The site existed, behind him on the other side of the room was a large map table where he'd plotted the coordinates of the site, based on the information he'd received at the ministry and how he'd been able to specify all this other information.

But all aerial and satellite imagery gave, quite simply bugger all. Oh he could see it, the land existed, there was probably some sort of entrance, which might have just been spec of grit on the camera.

It wasn't a very big area, but across images for the last 60 years there was this blurry blank spot.

Harry took the mug of tea that he'd left sitting next to him and leaned back sipping it, wincing slightly at its not quite tepid though far from hot temperature.

_Did all magical sites look like this?_ He wondered pondering to himself, if that was the case there would need to be a lot of people in the ministry keeping tracks on it all.

_Or was it __just__ this site? _Hogwarts looked like a run down dangerous castle to muggle eyes _supposedly_, but a camera wasn't muggle eyes technically so did they see the same thing as this?

He would have just gone out there, though getting there was another issue, he had already decided to take the lady at her word, no apparating and no portkeying, the last thing he wanted to do is be smeared like jam across England.

From what he could tell it was in pretty rough terrain for even a four wheel drive to get out there.

He winced again and put the tea down, it had passed down towards tepid and now wasn't all that drinkable, he grabbed the phone off the desk and pushed the speed dial button.

It only rang twice before there was an answer.

"_Hermione Granger_." Said the slightly agitated voice.

"It's Harry Hermione."

"_Oh Harry, sorry."_ She sounded more relaxed.

"You alright?" He asked, concerned.

She sighed. "Just school work you know." There was a pause. "Well you know I mean, more school work, university work."

Harry smiled. "I know Hermione, just a quick question I…" He was cut off.

"Why didn't you just apparate over here to ask me?" She asked curiously, cutting him off.

Harry smiled. "Aside from the fact that I'm in the middle of something. I know that you like to get work done at this time of day, in between late lunch and your afternoon class of…" Harry racked his brain for a moment. "'Comparative linguistics and contextual philosophies' isn't it?"

"_That's right._" She said impressed.

"I know you like to get into a groove of study before that, didn't want to interrupt you by popping in, or driving in, you know me and if I did pop in you'd feel we should go grab a drink…I just didn't want to disturb you."

"_Harry, that's…sweet of you. Honestly I can do with a bit of a distraction. What was it you needed?"_

"I remember a while back at Hogwarts you said something about horse riding lessons and how good your instructor was."

"_Yes."_ She said slowly.

"You wouldn't happen to know their name? I can get their number off the 'net."

"_Oh, yes Harry of course." _She paused "_Is this one of your thrill seeking adventures or…"_ She trailed off.

"LPI business actually Hermione and I thought you knew me!" he said in mock offence. "I like much faster things than a horse."

"_Got your eye on another sports car Harry, honestly that one you've got…"_

"Is perfectly reasonable, it's got three seats!" He chuckled as grabbed a piece of paper to jot down the name that Hermione began to read out.

"_Anything you can talk about?"_

"Not at the moment Hermione, sorry. Still the start of my investigations." Harry paused. "I should let you get back to…whatever it is you're studying at the moment. Trying to memorise all the names of the Byzantine army no doubt."

"_Harry Potter you…_" Harry could imagine she was giving him 'that' look again. Then she said after a moment. _"Whatever it is you need to ride a horse for look after yourself."_

"And you Hermione, don't stuck in the stacks or find yourself facing the reincarnation of satan, or something."

"_I'll leave the dangerous threatening things to you Harry."_ She said a quick 'bye and hung up.

_Present…_

Harry swallowed again, drawing in another hot breath of air as he shifted the weight of the oxygen tanks on his back and decided he needed to do some more exercising. Not enough running away from dangerous things to keep him fit.

He had considered magically lightening them, but considering how much magical contamination was around here he didn't want to risk anything. He didn't even have his wand with him.

He fumbled for a second with one of the clasps around his belt and broke and activated another of the light sticks and chucked it a short distance across the space, its glowing yellow orange glow illuminating the area ahead.

He cringed as he saw _another_ body. It was something like the 10th one he'd seen, it momentarily distracted him from the rising stench in his suit.

It was odd, only in the way it appeared to have died, he looked at it, but decided to keep thinking of an it, he didn't want to think of it as a person at the moment. It, appeared to have had its head beaten in by one of Lockhart's books, he could just about see the git's grinning face on the cover that was buried half way into the…it was a man's skull.

"I wonder what he did you deserve that." He mused to himself, his voice a muffled noise in the deserted cave.

_24 hours ago…_

Learning to ride a horse hadn't been _that_ complicated, it was no harder than riding Buckbeak. Very much easier considering the lack of wings and a dour disposition.

Getting the equipment he needed to take with him had been a fascinating experience.

The company he'd bought the suit from ensured him that it would protect him against; nuclear, chemical, biological and anything else. He hoped so, it had been expensive and the oxygen tanks were far from light.

He leaned back for a moment, looking at everything he had to fit into the saddle bags that would fit on the horse and into his bigger on the inside bag. Even with that he didn't want to put it all in there, as he wanted to have some equipment to hand as he rode up to the site.

_Present…_

Harry grabbed again at his belt, this time for the Geiger Counter, one of 'just in case' things he'd brought along with him. He'd been checking it every so often as he waded through the, there was no other way of putting it, toxic magical sludge and waste. Waste that was (he was sure) slowly eating through the suit, that _they'd_ ensured wouldn't be eaten away.

The counts per second reading was still wobbling around, even more so since he'd entered the 'site', it wasn't lethal _yet_ if he'd read the information correctly. But it certainly supported his theory he'd come up with after entering the site that repeated exposure was probably killing the house elves.

Harry slid the counter back onto his belt and grabbed the camera off of it.

Everything, the camera, the counter and all his other equipment hanging off his belt and chest webbing was secured and protected within sealed boxes.

Probably more secure than the suit. Harry thought to himself grimly as he began to take photos around him.

He'd considered buying a digital camera for this job, and then instantly dismissed the idea, given the amount of magic and the fact he'd needed to ride a horse here he'd decided against it. Though the boxes that he'd put all the equipment inside were in theory a delicate balance between enough shielding against the magical contamination and enough to allow them to do their scanning and whatever.

Harry wrinkled his nose again drawing another breath, despite the oxygen, the filters and everything else he could still smell the stench of rotting, disintegration and whatever else. He shifted forward, shuffling his feet around in the sludge taking further photos.

He wasn't sure what he would need the photos for, they were more a 'just in case' move, considering the creepy lady's maps had been less than accurate he wanted some for of documentation.

_A few hours ago._

Harry had left the horse tied beside a tree some distance from where the cave opened up. It would be a kilometer or so walk with all the heavy equipment he'd need.

But he hadn't wanted to take the horse any further. It was as though someone had 'salted the earth'. Everything leading up towards the cave entrance wasn't quite dead but it certainly looked toxic.

He'd set up the wash down shower and other facilities he'd brought with him a short distance away from the horse but not so close to where the devastation started. That was where he'd sealed up the suit, unpleasant as wearing the suit was he didn't want to get very close to the site unprotected.

The path, which he didn't want to think what it was under his suited boots was slick with a complex slime, despite it having been a relatively dry week. The area directly in front of the cave was very sick and very dead, a skeleton of a tree beside it seemed literally that, not just dead but devoid of life and structure it seemed to hang in the air and looked like it wanted to crumble to dust, but couldn't.

As he'd begun his way in a house elf had appeared.

"No, yose shouldn't be in here, youse in danger, youse go now." It had started towards him shaking its head.

"I'm from the ministry." He'd tried to say in his normal volume of voice but the mask and suit made it sound like "'M on tree." The house elf stared at him and he shouted it again.

The house elf opened its eyes wide and shook its head again squeaked at him and then disappeared.

He quickly discovered the Ministry's maps were well and truly incorrect. The linked cave systems were not linked, or maybe they had at one point and now only one was accessible, the others seemed….full. There was no other way to put it, sludge and detritus oozing out. Then he'd found the open entrance, and that's when his devices started making noises.

It was a device he'd borrowed from Sarah, which she said K9 had helped her build. Which presumably meant it could be built from Earth based materials, hopefully she'd let him take it apart and work out how to build his own. But she'd been happy to lend it to him "as long as you bring it back intact." It was a 'standard' energy detector. Exactly what made it standard he didn't know, but it had started making noises as soon as he'd walked into what he guessed was the largest chamber.

_Not_ large enough even combined with the other 3 chambers to hold rubbish for the last 500 years. No matter how he'd worked it out it even with Ioan's input, it didn't add up, the population of the mainland United Kingdom based wizarding world and the rubbish it generated, even at a conservative count didn't add up. Not by a long shot, but he knew that before he got here, but it was still confronting to see what was disposed of.

_Present…_

His energy detector device was making noises again as he shuffled his feet around, he was becoming very conscious of a smell, that _may_ have been his imagination, but his imagination would have to be _very_ over active and in a _very_ wrong place to come up with this smell.

He really didn't want to slip down into the muck, the radioactive, magically contaminated muck that was getting closer to his waist the more he moved around. He was becoming increasingly thankful he'd bought all the various clothes he was wearing under the suit that was supposed to shield him against the 'interesting' radiation as he'd termed it in his mind. It was better than the 'dangerous' or 'deadly' radiation names that also sprang to mind when he had read up on such things and to think, he'd been hoping there was just something mundane and boring killing the house elves…maybe a serial killer or something, not something horrible like radiation or other odd forms of energy.

He snapped the camera back onto its tag and grabbed for the detector, sucking in another breath of air, fetid stale air mixed with the oxygen. Harry gritted his teeth as he fumbled for the detector, he was beginning to sweat more and more he realised as he blinked.

Definitely more exercise, he decided, making a note to himself.

It was blinking, beeping and making an odd warbling noise, or these could have all been one noise translated through its protective covering and bouncing around the vomit inducing swamp of rubbish and the detritus of a civilisation, and the odd dead body and then heard through his protective suit.

Harry shifted his weight from foot to foot shifting around pointing the device carefully in all positions around him.

The whatever it was that had a high and boarder line dangerous energy signature was below him, he was either standing on top of it, or he was standing just in front of it and then below him.

"Like standing on the nose of a beast." He murmured to himself, it probably hadn't sounded like that to anyone around him, but it made him feel better talking aloud to himself, at the moment he didn't really care about being silly and talking to himself.

Harry gazed down at the slime and sludge, the residue that was floating on the thick viscous not quite liquid that he was wading through.

What he really needed was to see underneath and maybe get a look at the…the dangerous energy emitting radiation belching 'something'.

Before he'd really had time to think it through twice he was grabbing at several of the light sticks from the pouches about his suit and snapping them to activate them and began to shove them down through the soup of fetid syrup, down, down towards where all his instruments said bad energy (literally) lay.

"This is a bad idea Harry Potter." He said to himself, again it was muffled and again he didn't really care. If he didn't work this out here and now he'd have to trudge all the way back, back to the wash down shower, rinse off the suit and then pack it all away, get on the horse ride back, get checked over and then do all of this again, wade through the dead bodies, the stench (imagined or not) and go through all this crap again. Something he didn't want to do.

He checked the camera again.

The suit was waterproof, but pressure proof he couldn't quite remember the statistics on that, it was something he should have remembered, but when he'd purchased it he'd been more focused on it protecting him when he was walking around in whatever detritus had been around for 500 years of wizarding civilisation, that had been poisoning house elves, old chocolate frog packaging didn't do that (or shouldn't, if it did the manufacturers would need to have a stern word said to them).

He breathed in two full lungfuls of air before plunging down under the swamp of sickness and vomit inducing disguisting horribleness.

It was if anything worse under than above, eve with the reduced visibility.

For a moment, with the oxygen tanks on his back Harry panicked as he felt himself 'falling' or sinking downwards, but below him wasn't very far, he could sort of see what they were sitting next to. He slowly, fighting against the sludge grabbed at the camera, taking a stream of shots as he felt the pressure pushing at the suit, and the smell and sensation of the slime and sewer pit liquid pressing the suit against him and the rising bile in his throat threatening to leap fore and disgorge itself into his mask.

He didn't know how many shots he'd take but he started to kick and push away from the bottom without being half conscious of the noise of both the Geiger counter and the energy detector going off.

Now, now he was just focused on leaving, he was sure he could hear, could feel or smell the suit bubbling, rotting like so much in this cave, it wasn't just sickening him it was making him recoil, recoil from himself in the disgust and shock of the experience.

Much or the trudge away from the cave, away from that place was a blur to Harry, he only really came back to sensation, to conscious alive thought once the water cascaded over the suit, hissing and steaming as it hit the excrement that had been excised along with his exit from the reeking depths he'd endured.

--//

Harry looked over the preliminary medical workup. He'd asked Ioan for a GP who knew about wizards and what not, he'd had a checkup before he'd gone on his 'journey', and as soon as he'd returned from his 'journey' he'd got a medical workup. Who knew what had got through his suit, it hadn't as far as he'd found breached anywhere, but it was very thin and possibly porous in places.

But it looked like he'd come away mostly unscathed, on his upper back he'd received an odd chemical burn which the doctor had taken to with a medieval looking contraption and removed, _painfully_ and then sprayed something equally painful on it.

He'd told Harry it would scar, the whatever it had been wasn't from the radiation just a pecular potion derivative, his doctor had said it had too many unknowns, but it had been nessecary to remove quickly.

Harry looked in the mirror the doctor was holding up so he could see the area more easily.

"One more to the collection of scars." He muttered, he'd needed prior to his departure given the GP a full medical history so he was fully aware of the multiple scars that littered his body. One more didn't worry him.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief as he drove to Sarah's house.

Sarah had offered to develop his photos for him "As a job Harry, we're both professionals." She'd said and added. "You have your investigations that I won't get involved with okay?" Harry had nodded, she'd added that he could however borrow things from her, that was something friends did she'd said.

It suited him, it was at least a skill he didn't have to learn straight away. It wasn't as though he could go to the local photo shop and ask them to develop them for him.

"Did you look at them?" Harry asked as Sarah passed him an thick envelope of photos.

She shook her head. "No, just to check they came out. Not the details. This is business Harry." Then she smiled softly. "How are you, after it all?"

"Relieved." He sipped the cup of tea. "Medical tests came back clear." He shuddered. "That wasn't something I hadn't been expecting, I mean I expected something but the…sensation."

"Next time you should take someone with you, as back up."

Harry smiled. "I'm just starting at this Sarah, anyway who have you got to watch your back?"

"I've got K9." She said defiantly, a little smile on her face.

Harry drained his cup. "Thanks for the tea Sarah, done me a world of good. But…"

"You need to go an analyze those photos. I know." She said with a knowing smile.

"You know?"

"It's what I would want to be doing."

"Solving the mystery." They grinned at each other.

--//

The second thing Harry did after quickly looking through the photos was scan them all into his computer and put the originals into his safe, just in case.

It wasn't much, there was a lot of murkiness going on, he could see even less than he could when he'd been there. But there was definitely something in several of the images.

After a few hours of looking through the images he turned the computer off, it had been a long day and the images were beginning to look all the same.

The next morning and slightly more awake he stared, freshly at the photos, a chill of memory trickling down his back as he stared at several of the photos he'd run various image enhancements over.

There was on the side of the black, blocky brown 'something' a long way down at the bottom of the image a series of symbols, that he recognised, or recognised the description. Round symbols followed by rounded oblongs and U shapes.

"…_Like the city of the Exxilons…"_

Harry recalled the Doctor, one more than one occasion talking about how the Exxilons had visited Earth influencing the Mayans among others, and then there were the Osirians, visiting Egypt and Aztecs, except that was Ian, Susan the Doctor and of course Barbara.

But this certainly looked like the symbols that Sarah had once described both when he'd first met her and when they'd subsequently chatted. It had supposedly been an amazing city, then there were the Daleks of course, and her nearly being sacrificed, that always puts a downer on the whole experience of travelling to another planet.

--//

"Well?" Harry asked, it had been several minutes since he'd given Sarah the photos to look at and she'd been steadily frowning ever since.

"K-9." She called out.

"Mistress." It, He trundled in.

"Is this Exxilon?" She held the photos up to its 'eye'.

This K-9 was looking a bit more worse for wear than the K-9 he'd met when the Doctor and Romana had visited…it felt like ages ago.

K-9's ears waggled back and forth as though it was thinking.

"Next image Mistress." Sarah swapped the images, and again through all of them. The K-9 went still, his ears twitched for a moment.

"Well K-9?" Sarah sighed after a moment.

"Processing Mistress, do you require translation?" He asked matter-of-factly.

"That would be excellent K-9 and is it Exxilon?" She asked sharing a look with Harry who smiled slightly amused at K-9

"Affirmative Mistress."

"Why didn't you say that immediately? Or do you just like keeping up the tension?" Harry muttered, K-9 didn't answer him, Harry suspected K-9 had actually heard his question and ignored him.

"Unable to translate directly Mistress."

"Oh well K-9." Sarah idly patted his head.

"Partial translation possible Mistress."

"Fine what does it say K-9?" Harry asked finally. K-9 remained silent. Harry looked at him and back at K-9. "Oh come on, what have I don't to annoy him?"

Sarah looked down at K-9. "Well K-9?"

"Sensor readings of individual, Harry Potter; friend, reveal random trace amounts of chronon, artron and unidentifiable energy."

Sarah looked back to Harry, Harry sighed. "Which means I've travelled in time, been in close proximity of the Doctor and his TARDIS and been around other unknown things not in your database. The previous K-9 was less uptight than you are you know."

"Harry!" Sarah berated him.

Harry chuckled. "Sorry, but he hasn't been that welcoming. What is it you want to know K-9?"

K-9 seemed to go silent for a bit. Then started "Rough translation is a description of function; _power management, transmigration, output._"

"Transmigration?" Sarah asked.

"Suggestion Mistress. Transmigration means…" But Harry cut K-9 off.

"Teleport, transmat, matter transmission." Harry said rising from where he was seated, and stepping over K-9 to get the photos.

"This explains a bit, I remember the Doctor saying something about the Exxilons using some exotic radioactive stuff to power their ships…" Harry said thinking out loud. 500 years of waste…a transmat breaks down matter into energy…so, this thing was breaking down the magical rubbish and…but something was going wrong and…now it wasn't working.

"And what happens when you push radioactive material beyond…oh crap."

"He's like the Doctor." Sarah muttered to K-9 as she watched Harry as he paced, his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets.

"Oh crap on a big scale. K-9 can you estimate given the approximate dimensions of the Exxilon device how large the power source might be."

"Estimation only 60% accurate." He said before giving him the answer. Harry's frown increased.

"Oh. Theoretically what would happen if that source was fed with energy for the last 500 years and it broke down 80 percent of that, retained the rest, what would the size of the energy discharge be like?" Harry asked a very worrying idea forming in his head.

K-9 went silent his ears waggling for several minutes.

"Harry? What…?"

"It's a magical dumping ground, and I think this thing has been processing the waste into energy, it's all been bouncing around in a closed system, but it's now reaching critical mass."

"Affirmative. Critical mass will create an explosion of…" The number was big, big enough that Harry was worried.

"But we haven't got there yet?" Harry asked slowly.

"Negative, based on _your_ theoretical statistics." K-9 replied.

"Oh crap." Harry sat down heavily. "I think we'll need to do what they do with all problems."

--//

"This is your solution Potter?" The creepy lady asked looking at the sheet of printed paper, he couldn't tell if she was angry at him or what, maybe she didn't like the paper.

"Yes, or we can keep going and end up with a new lake the size of Wales in the middle of Britain."

"Fill it with the muggle concrete and hope for the best." _'That's your solution'_ seemed to be an unsaid statement in the glase she gave him.

Harry shrugged. "Works for nuclear power plants." The words didn't seem to mean anything to the creepy lady. He could have said works for 'dolphin kitten treadmill power plants' for all the words 'nuclear power plant' meant.

"You're sure Potter, about what it is that's doing this?" She turned the paper over and then looked at him.

"I'm not sure you'd like the answer. It falls within the purview of the operation I represent."

She stared at him for a moment, her eyes shooting spikes at him. Then suddenly she said "Very well. I will have to speak with the Minister."

"I can wait. I'm sure he'll want me away as soon as possible."

She was gone barely ten minutes, he'd heard her muffled voice talking in the fire.

"What do you suggest we do now, with the rubbish, now that you intend to seal up _our_ only site."

Harry felt like saying 'well that's your problem, creepy unnamed lady'. But he didn't. "Look for a new one." Harry said. "That's what the muggles do." He added then asked. "The minister?"

"Said to deal with it." Harry nodded.

"Fine."

--//

Getting the concrete trucks hadn't been too complicated. Ioan had agreed as part of being a paid up member of the League of Paranormal Investigations to get some of his mates to help.

They'd also discovered something else that the creepy unnamed lady (Ioan laughed at his description and her lack of a name) had been wrong about.

They'd been able to drive an old four wheel drive closeish to the cave before it stalled and died, close certainly enough to get the concrete pump and hose near enough to it.

So much for preventing muggles from driving up to it. Though he wondered what 'mechanical' meant in wizarding terms if not the internal combustion engine.

He'd got the job of donning a (new) protective suite and dragging the hose for the concrete pump back into the cave.

Once he got inside the vomit inducing caves, bodies and all (he had made an executive decision to leave the bodies where they'd been dumped given how much magical slurry their bodies would have absorbed. Making sure the hose was set firmly in place he hiked back to the cave opening and made a start up motion to Ioan. Harry watched for several moments, the noise of diesel engines drifting down to him. Once he was certain of the flow he hiked back up the hill towards the sound of diesel engines and oddly the sound of instruments being set up.

Harry walked over to where Ioan was manning the concrete pump. "Where'd you find these people?" Harry gestured with a gloved hand to where some of Ioan's friends were setting up some instruments under the tree Harry had tied his horse to.

Ioan smiled. "Here and there, you needed people to drive the trucks, you got them Harry. Some of 'em were curious, others like an odd interesting time."

"And hanging out by a magical tip filled with semi-radioactive waste is their idea of fun?"

"Beats playing at a pub." Said a female someone behind him. Harry turned around.

"I'd shake your hand but." He turned his hands upward, gesturing the gloved hands, he'd only pulled off the top of his suit, in case he needed to go back in.

"Just got word, we've got 10 more on route and can have five more after that if need be."

Ioan nodded. "That 10 more after these 10 should be enough if you measured correctly Harry." Harry refocused on Ioan.

"That should be enough."

"It has to be, other wise apocalypse." Ioan joked Harry smiled. Ioan looked at him.

"You don't know, when the apocalypse happens do you?" He asked quietly leaning in to him. Harry hand't really begun to tell him everything about his life but…

"Not the zombie one." Harry said with a chuckle as the band behind them started to play a competing tune to the noise of the concrete pump and mixers.

Harry turned and looked across the afternoon, despite the stench rising from the cave it was still a nice day.

--//

Author Notes:

No Doctor again in this chapter (sorry), but I have been plotting out future chapters where he will appear.

I've had some questions in reviews about _when_ the Doctor is going to be seen again.

Harry won't be _visited_ by the Doctor again, but will meet the Doctor again and he will also see the Doctor again several more times.

These are different things.

To put all this into perspective Harry has met the Ninth and Tenth Doctors in his past, but given how the Doctor visits Earth those visits are in the Doctor's future, but Harry's past (however also Harry's future as defined by when the Doctor visits Earth).

So Harry will not interact with either of those two Doctors until they come to Earth in the natural flow of their timeline.

I have also been thinking about Ginny and the development of her character. Ginny isn't going to be squished to jam, nor will she disappear into the ether never to be mentioned again (which would probably be easier, though not as interesting).

I have worked out some of the issues about her character (not just the ones I've generated for myself), she's still going to go through some hard roads. But I think I've come up with a path that is going to help reshape her character and filter out the less than tolerable bits of her character.

Thanks for reading.


	15. Chapter 15

---

**Chapter 15**

Harry threw down a copy of the _Hourly Telepress_ with some slight disgust onto the table. The adventures of the Karkus had been going down hill recently.

Outside his kitchen window it was beginning to look distinctly windy, there was also the noise of said wind, but that was so often around that he'd begun to think of it as background noise.

There didn't seem to be anything dangerous heading Earth's way in the lead up to Christmas, though he reflected it had been an interesting year thus far. Harry looked back to the _Hourly Telepress _on the table, tonight, despite the wind and cold outside he wasn't going to spend inside. Ioan had invited him to a midnight gathering with his friends some of whom had 'no fixed abode' they liked to call themselves 'Traveller', supposedly he shouldn't refer to them as 'gypsies'. Harry looked around his kitchen and wondered what one brought to a midnight gathering. Or he thought to himself looking out the window again what one should leave behind.

Or he thought to himself looking out the window again what one should leave behind.

Harry shrugged his shoulders sparing one final look for his warm house and grabbed his keys and jacket, slamming the door behind him.

Several kilometers away a figure sat with great difficulty on a broom and watched through a pair of Omnioculars that she had borrowed from her brother. She watched for several moments, wrinkling her nose up as the figure drove away before she too flew off home…

_Flashback…9 months ago…_

She stared at Hermione, she couldn't, no she could believe that _she_ would believe in aliens.

"Ginny, you have to understand Harry's seen some things, _I've_ seen things, there's _evidence_ of aliens" Ginny cut her off.

"_DON'T_ say that word."

Hermione snorted. "It's Voldemort all over again." She muttered under her breath. "Ron asked, pleaded with me to meet with you, he said you've been fuming since New Year's Eve. Was it the blood?" Hermione shook her head. "I know what you said to him." She looked at Ginny across the table.

"He talked to you?" Ginny said, her voice rising.

"Yes, of course we talk, that's what friends do Ginny."

"About _deviant_ things?" She hissed, narrowing her eyes at the woman whom she thought would understand being a so-called 'rational' 'logical' person when they'd been at Hogwarts.

"Deviant?" Hermione stared at her before quirking a slightly smirk she had probably picked up from Harry. "Yes Ginny we talk about _deviant_ things, sometimes we even talk about time travel."

Ginny shrugged, but still kept her eyes fixed on Hermione Granger, it was bad enough they were talking about this _in public_.

Hermione sighed. "Do some research Ginny, Harry's more than I think you even realise."

"Don't you understand Hermione he, it's a _delusion_, a _deviant_ delusion that's the creation simple _muggles._"

"I'm a simple muggle then am I? For believing Harry, believing things _I've_ seen with my own eyes." She stood up. "I think we're done here Ginny, if you'll allow a _simple_ muggle to leave your esteemed company?"

Ginny stared at the space where Hermione had previously occupied having disapparated with barely a sound.

--//

"Hey Ginny, how'd your meeting with Hermione go?" George looked up from the account books as Ginny stormed in, he didn't really know what was troubling his young sister, Ron hadn't really spoken about it and when he'd been home mum and dad had only said that she and Harry were 'having problems since New Year's Eve'.

According to some of his suppliers, especially those from the Americas some very weird stuff had gone on in San Francisco, but nothing that could have affected people over here, especially his sister, or Harry.

Harry though had kept himself pretty much off the scene as far as George could tell, they had kept in occasional contact here and there. Since…since the war, Harry hadn't been to Diagon Alley all that much. Though George could understand why. And his letter asking for a special appearance by the 'absolutely wonderful, hero of the magical world and all that' had come back to him scrawled with red ink that just said 'bugger off', followed by a hole that was some unidentifiable hex, for some reason it made George chuckle, there was also the challenge of working out what hex Harry had fired at the letter before scrawling a response on the back of it to send him.

George refocused his attention back on his sister who was spluttering like a grindylow.

"It's Harry and Hermione they're…they…" She was gritting her teeth and looked like she was building up to a big rant.

"Ron." George said quickly to his brother who was restocking the Defence Against the Dark Arts section which despite the defeat of Volde' by Harry people still were buying them, supposedly the muggle world was becoming more and more dangerous, people seeing things that _were_ real. "Come on Ginny, let's go into the office and we can have a nice chat, without scaring the customers, though we could do a display of our new calming tonics, they're carbonated, it's a muggle idea." George grinned at her, Ginny had an expression on her face that made the face Ron pulled when he asked to help him with some potions look like a dazzling grin.

In fact the look on Ginny's face could have curdled Doxycide.

"You look like Ron when he has to clean the potions cauldrons." He tried again to raise a smile from Ginny. He'd barely closed the door to the office when she began shouting, talking in a low voice and other wise ranting.

George half listened, idly scratching the place where his ear _used_ to be, he could actually still hear through it, the parts that made him able to hear were still there, just not _his_ ear. Harry had suggested something called _plastic surgery_ to replace it, it sounded weirdly barbaric, it was something he'd been meaning to follow Harry up on, if he could work out where the man lived. All owls seemed to go through a mail forwarding company, some of his suppliers used a similar service to get owls quicker or internationally, his owls were sent to a location where they were bulk mailed with others on a faster bird.

For now he sometimes spelled a fake ear when he was doing business, he still didn't feel completely comfortable with no ear, when it was windy it gave him weird chills when the wind blew down the cavity.

George felt he had to stop Ginny in her spiel when she started asking him to help in an intervention.

"Ginny." He said calmly staring into her eyes, they were red with tears from the rage she'd worked herself into.

"What!" She snarled.

"The muggles aren't as stupid as you think." George said slowly, he never thought he'd have to say something like that to his own sister after Voldemort and his ideas, especially considering what it cost all of them.

"I never said they're stupid, they just believe that the tricks the Ministry uses and now Harry thinks, he thinks that…" She trailed off pausing to take a breath. "He's delusional he needs help, don't you see that George he thinks that he's fighting _aliens_." She hissed the last word

"Speak like that more and I'll need a parsletongue translator." He commented idly.

"George, I'm serious, I need you to help with an intervention!"

George frowned, interventions were barely spoken of and more often than not still resulted in expunction by the Ministry if they were official.

"Why do you want to go and do that Ginny?"

"Don't you understand what's going on?" She asked accusingly.

George stared back at her, mildly wary of her vicious temper, at the moment the flame was on high and the potion was ready to explode.

"I'm not going to help you with an intervention." He said firmly watching her, his arms crossed, fingers just touching his wand, just in case, just in case Ginny was over confident, which didn't matter as long as you _had _the determination to continue with it, Ginny did though.

"You're WHAT? You won't help me get this…this _sickness_ out of him! If we let him keep thinking these things, you know what happens!"

George had to admit he _didn't_ really know what happened, of the people that did talk about aliens they generally didn't spend time very long around wizards, most never even made it to St Mungos, he didn't really know much more, just that they left to pursue their 'ideas', that was what he'd heard.

They were dangerous, deviant, delusional, the three Ds.

George tried changing tactics. "Ginny, Harry fought Voldemort! What makes you think we could get him in an intervention?"

"That's beside the point, he's _afflicted_." She shrugged dismissively.

George scratched at his ear region again until he felt his fingers get wet, he mentally cursed himself, it was blood, he knew it was, he'd done it loads of times, almost always when people came in and started to talk about Fred, or memories of the two of them, or…

He closed his eyes for a moment. Decisive action was what was called for. That was what they used to say.

"Get out Ginny." He said standing up suddenly. Ginny opened her mouth to argue. "I'm not going to help in an intervention, I don't care what he believes, he's his own man." As am I, he thought silently to himself rubbing his fingers on the back of his long 'store man's coat' he'd bought to mark himself out from the other traders on the alley. "People thought Harry was mad for believing Voldemort was back."

"But that's different! You know how _sick_ you have to be to think _aliens _exist, George?" She pleaded as he opened the door out of the office.

"Leave Ginny, please."

"I'm telling mum and dad, they'll tell you!"

George smiled, suddenly feeling tired and energized at the same time. "Then I'll have to stay here, outcast again, first Hogwarts now the Burrow, maybe it'll be another 'creative awakening' as the Prophet once said, maybe we can name something after Harry, Harry the alien?"

"You…you…" Ginny let off a set of words that sounded like shouts of anger, or quite possibly swear words, the door shut as she backed out of the shop.

George let out a breath of air he hadn't realised he was holding, Ron was beside him holding a handkerchief, George took it silently. Ron seemed always have a set (clean) handkerchiefs on him, always ready for him. Ready to help.

"Thanks Ron."

"No problems. I'm heading out back to grab some more trick wands." Ron jabbed his thumb towards the rear of the shop, George nodded looking out the windows at the front of the shop, but Ginny had already apparated away.

--//

_Present (December 2000)_

Harry carefully got out of his car, technically he could have apparated to the site, that would've been easier. But, he thought looking at the muddy area he'd parked in he _really_ should start looking for another car, or something.

He smiled to himself. Christmas was on the way, and he hadn't claimed a work vehicle yet.

Plus, despite the cold wind whipping around him he felt like some excersise. The workouts he'd been taking himself through 'the cave' incident had been helping. He was now fairly sure he could walk around with oxygen tanks on his back, in a protective suit in a rubbish infested cave, while standing on top of a radioactive alien device, without getting too out of breath.

Unfolding a small map he gaged the site Ioan had told him to aim for was probably a little under an hour away.

--//

_Flashback, about 8 months ago…_

Ginny barely resisted the urge to scream as she hurled the ball of parchment at the wall, it hit with a dull thud, a testament to how hard she threw it. It joined on the floor and in the bin an increasing pile of letters.

She'd tried sending letters out to her friends at Hogwarts, people she'd associated with.  
An intervention was called for, Harry Potter had to be purged of the delusions that had infected his mind and thinking, lest it become an addiction that required more severe actions.

She'd sent carefully worded letters to everyone she'd been even mildly associated with, even many of the half-bloods, she was sure _they'd_ understand the danger.

Ginny stared at the pile of parchment as she fired off random spells in the waste paper bin's direction.

Some had called _her_ 'eccentric' for suggesting what she'd mentioned and that she needed assistance for what she had planned.

Two even said she 'obsessed' with Harry Potter and now that he'd 'left her' that she was being an 'obsessive fan girl'. Ginny shot two spells at those two letters that immediately turned to ash.

Harry Potter was the obsessed man, sick and obsessed, delusional and a deviant that if this compulsion wasn't rectified it would wreak havoc on his life.

--//

_Present…_

_How_ these Travellers had managed to get their horse drawn caravans down here Harry didn't know. It was a plateau at the bottom of a hill, in the dwindling light he could make out a river a short distance off.

It was also relatively sheltered, though there was still a definite bite to the air.

"What are you doing here Harry?" He said to himself stuffing the pair of binoculars back into his pocket, looking down on the caravans unassisted. He felt, an odd sense of forboding, which couldn't be good.

Harry shrugged to himself, it was probably the wind and approaching shadows biting away at him.

Looking down along the 'path' of long grass it already had some footprints indented in it.

Footsteps were good, it meant at least that something human sized had walked the path before.

At least that meant if there was going to be something that was going to try and kill him that it was human sized. Or hovered.

Not that all aliens were bad, he'd met a few (other than the Doctor and the Magister) who he'd been able to help who hadn't wanted to suckle out his brains with the fine steel straw.

Though he had heard they were out there, suckling brains.

Maybe he'd ask Jack about it the next time they met, he had suggested he was good at a bit of suckling.

Or maybe that was a suggestion he'd made to Harry…Harry stopped walking for a moment trying to recall. The last time he'd been out with Jack they'd gone drinking, well Harry had suggested they go drinking, Jack still wouldn't tell him _where_ Torchwood's secret base was.

Harry could have found out in a variety of ways, but it was far more fun to try and get Jack to reveal it to him.

Willingly.

--//

_Flashback about 6 months ago_

Ginny smiled to herself as she walked through the Ministry unquestioned.

Of all the people she had talked to, dad had been the most understanding. He had after all worked to protect muggles from wizards, he knew what could 'befall' wizards working so closely to protect wizards and muggles from the wizarding world.

_Although_ he also had said he couldn't help with the purging of Harry's _alleged_ sickness.

He hadn't said _alleged_ but that was what _Malfoy_ had called it.

In a very last ditch letter she'd sent to Malfoy, claiming familial connections requesting his assistance.

Even just in writing his tone had been mocking and put downing, he'd even suggested that _she_ should visit St Mungo's. Though he never did in his letter suggest that he believed Harry, though he didn't say he believed her either.

It had been easy enough convincing her father to let her come with him to work, he hadn't asked her why, but there was an understanding that he wouldn't ask about anything concerning Harry's _sickness_ and she wouldn't do anything to arouse suspicion.

--//

Ginny stood in an alcove opposite the entrance to the Department of International Magical Cooperation, waiting.

Within the department was a corridor which lead to another dealing with businesses that operated within the United Kingdom but also dealt with international magical communities.

It was this department she was waiting on to go to lunch. The whole department went to lunch at vaguely the same time.

She wanted to get in there, into their files because they had lists of all the mail forwarding businesses.

Harry was using one, she knew that well enough after she'd followed Pig with one of her letters to him and Pig had disappeared somewhere within London that she couldn't follow, not with the muggles and their cameras that worked like photos all the time, watching.

After casually asking around the Ministry (everyone was _very_ happy to help her) she'd found out she needed a Ministry identification confirmation number to get the company to reveal the person's _real_ address. Usually they'd need something from the Wizengamot. But with all the international trade opening up, something to do with the muggles again with the European community she had a chance that wouldn't normally be available to her.

As the last wizard shuffled out Ginny caught the door, slipping her fingers carefully around it before it shut and automatically locked and would be immune from spells from the outside.

The files were neat and organised and she had just about found what she was looking for…

"Hey! What are you doing you can't –" He was cut off as Ginny spun around dropping the file she was holding and stunned him.

Ginny stood still for a moment, holding her wand firm, breathing only slightly heavily as the wizard crumbled to the ground. She carefully picked up the file and began noting down the information. Ignoring the slight wheezing noise the wizard was making, crumpled on the floor.

Ginny readied her wand at the wizard's head, but paused her a moment to snip some hair from his head. Then she re-levelled her wand and muttered 'Oblivate'.

She wasn't anywhere near as good as Hermione, but she was relatively sure that she hadn't scrambled the wizard's brains when she'd oblivated him.

At the very least he would never remember that she'd been in his office, at the most he'd never remember anything ever again.

Ginny quietly let herself out of the office, smiling.

--//

_Present…_

"You must be Ioan's friend." Harry didn't jump, but his hand did go to his wand, given the voice behind him had come up to him without making a noise.

He hoped that there was a body attached to the (female) voice as he turned around slowly, keeping one hand on the pocket that held his wand.

The voice did indeed belong to a body.

A body who was only half clothed.

"Aren't you cold?" Harry asked her after a moment of odd though oddly not awkward silence, especially considering she, (whoever she was) was topless and wearing a sarong in what was not exactly sarong wearing weather.

She laughed. "Not the first thing some would have said Harry Potter."

He didn't even bother asking how she knew his name, maybe Ioan told the weird half naked lady, maybe she knew him from another plain of existence.

All that really mattered was whether she was going to try and kill him.

Or torture him in some new and fascinating way.

He could as he inhaled, smell smoke.

He really hoped hot pokers weren't involved. Especially not hot pokers, cold pokers would hurt a lot less, though they would be far less intimidating.

Harry turned to follow the half naked woman. "I really hope it isn't pokers." He muttered to himself, wondering if it wasn't too late to escape. He trusted Ioan enough that he hadn't lead him into a dangerous situation, but as far as friends betraying him and stabbing him in the back, he didn't have a brilliant track record. Though he couldn't keep picking bad apples.

--//

_Flashback 3 months ago…_

So this was what Harry was up to.

Ginny sat watching Harry with some _muggles_ emptying something into a _magical_ site. The Omnioculars were at their maximum and even at this distance away from the magical site they were playing up, but she could just about make out Harry and the _muggles_. He was wearing some sort of _muggle_ outfit.

She really should inform the Ministry Ginny thought to herself, his deviancy and the delusions seemed to be taking a detrimental effect on his mental capacities. Ginny felt for her wand.

In his state she could stun the muggles, they shouldn't put up any resistance.

Then she could stun or perhaps even wound Harry and take him for an intervention, or perhaps more drastic measures would be necessary. Harry was clearly breaking the statute of secrecy, reason enough for her to use any measure necessary she thought to herself.

However, Ginny sat, watching as the _muggle_ machines, bigger than cars continued to do whatever _muggle_ thing they were doing.

Then she saw Harry talking to a _muggle _woman, Ginny sneered, that _muggle_ wasn't good enough for him.

Ginny then panicked slightly as she saw Harry turn towards he and stare for a few moments, smiling before turning away following the _muggle woman_ up towards a tree that was somewhat obscured behind two of the large _muggle_ machines that were like big cars her father once liked.

Ginny thought about asking her father about it later, but he'd been a little distant from her lately, she wondered if it was something at the Ministry.

Ginny put one hand on the broom turning slightly to look at the cave, but in the decreasing light even with the Omnioculars she couldn't make out much.

She dare not get closer, on her broom she'd tried earlier and literally fallen out of the air into a horrible smelling marsh. Ginny spared one last look at the _muggle_ machines before turning the broom away, flying as fast as she could to a safe enough distance away from the site.

--//

_Present…_

It was something like the cross between a circus and a festival.

If everyone was half naked and there was a bonfire, or what would be a bonfire if someone lit it in the centre of the roughly arranged caravans.

"I could have stayed at home, trying to work out…" He was cut off in his conversation with himself when someone patted him on the back.

"Harry, you made it." Harry spun around at the voice, only realising it was Ioan and his with when he'd already drawn his wand.

Harry noted several things suddenly when he turned around, both Akilina and Ioan were naked from the waist upwards. Harry kept his eyes fixed on their shoulders up, he noted that Ioan had his hair out of a his pony tail.

And they were both naked from the top up.

It still wasn't all that balmy either.

"What the fu– " Harry started to say when Ioan cut him off.

"I suppose you have questions."

"Someone who I thought was a friend invites me to meet some 'Travellers' and everyone is suddenly naked."

"Only half." Akilina said with a smile. Harry didn't dare look downwards, he had no idea what the correct manners were in this situation, but he didn't want to look at the breasts of his friend's wife. That was just a little too odd.

Jack would know, he'd know how to behave when faced with a situation like this.

Or not, knowing Jack and his stories, the man seemingly had been to more orgies than Harry had been shot at.

Focus on the now, he decided, if he was going to be shot he could focus on that later, just before it happened, and shortly after obviously. During, he'd obviously need to shoot back.

"We thought you might find it interesting." Ioan continued as they started walking forcing Harry to walk with them. Harry flirted with the idea of walking backwards so he could keep an eye on them, but there were far more people around.

None of them he wanted to keep a too close eye on.

"One question, why topless?" Harry asked after a moment of not awkward silence.

"It's a ritual." Ioan said.

Akilina sighed. "It's a cold night. They would usually have us naked in a Dionysians movement of embrace. But…"

"Cold night." Harry blinked for a moment. He'd been side tracked for a moment watching someone eat a long flaming stick.

"Ritual."

"To contact the temporal plane, to let us walk paths of the lords."

Said a new voice, Harry turned, slowly around.

Harry recoiled, although he couldn't actually fathom why. The woman in front of him was of middle age, with pale tattoos that he couldn't make out along her arms.

"Contact the temporal plane." Harry prompted. Ignoring for a moment the odd look the odd woman was giving him.

"And walk the paths the lords." The weird woman who gave off an odd creepy vibe replied.

"We'll leave you to speak." Harry was about to say 'no please stay don't leave me with the…' but they merged into a group of people. Marvellous.

Something about the woman made him feel…off, so Harry turned away from her to stare at the bonfire, currently unlit.

Despite her creepiness the suggestion had made him curious.

"Temporal plane." He said again prompting. "How?"

"The Travellers have a gathered a mass of time sensitives, they're-" Harry cut her off. "People sensitive to temporal anomalies, sensitive to how time flows and whatever."

"Yes, how very astute of you." She didn't sound all that surprised.

"So?" Harry said, still not looking at her, he had a bad feeling about this, but it was counteracted by curiosity.

"They will begin a chant, speaking, muttering numbers, the building blocks of the universe, and for a short period, walk as lords."

"'Building blocks of the universe'." Harry repeated, looking at the bonfire, then slowly turning around. "Block Transfer Computations." He said facing the woman, ignoring the weird feeling he got when he got close to her.

"Yes." She smiled.

"Who are you?" Harry asked, watching her.

The woman continued to smile.

Harry didn't know why he was sitting here, listening to the chanting in a circle around the still unlit bonfire.

"This sounds a bit Buddhist to me." He said to no one in particular. He wasn't sure why he'd agreed to help the weird woman. She had promised that none of the Travellers would be hurt.

She hadn't said why he was here, but he had got the distinct impression he wasn't going to be able to leave if he wanted to.

Which is why he'd agreed to help.

He continued with the chanting.

"As long as I don't end up on Metebelis Three with a spider on my back." He muttered in a break between the chants.

"Metebelis Three?" Ioan was beside him, watching him.

"Famous for its blue crystals and giant spiders." Harry said off handedly looking down at the piece of paper he was meant to be chanting the words to. Everyone else it seemed had practiced the words many times and some had achieved this 'walking on the plane of the lords'.

As the chanting began again he let himself mutter the words as everyone else chanted around him.

It wasn't hard to work out that the temporal plane the lords walked on was the time vortex. The Lords were the Time Lords, probably.

The last time he'd really seriously spoken about the Web of Time with the Doctor when he'd met Charley he'd mentioned other temporal powers, but none of them would be so egotistical to call themselves 'lords'.

Now he was helping a creepy mysterious woman because he was curious.

The chanting was getting louder and louder as though everyone was really beginning to chant in sync.

Then the bonfire exploded into life and he was sure, in the flare from the brightness he could see something with white wings, flapping around.

Then everything went white.

Harry looked around, he was in a white…nothingness. Which he supposed was better than black unconsciousness.

"This is what happens when my curiosity gets the better of me." He looked around. "Should've stayed at home, worked out who it is that's been stalking me."

There was a noise, Harry turned a full 360 degrees around. But couldn't see anything, he wondered if there was any use in running in any given direction.

He doubted it.

"Umm…Hello?" He said looking up. The sky, ceiling or whatever it was that was above him was also white. "This isn't the time vortex." He tried.

"Really?" Asked a female voice, Harry spun around searching, looking, something moved, but it was white against the white nothingness of the background.

"Yeah, it's all swirling colours…or something." The Doctor had been somewhat vague on what the vortex looked like. Jo had said it was all swirling colours kinda psychedelic, Zoe had mentioned the scanner was just blank when they were in flight, the Doctor never really was specific.

"Or something." The female voice said amused.

"Now that I've helped you, what are you?"

"I am…what I am." The female voice paused, Harry kicked at the floor, or whatever was under his feet. "The so called Lords of Time know us as Chronovores. You have met them before."

The word Chronovore rang a bell with him but he just said "Yes."

"You are dripping in their temporal scent, it was nessecary to break the bond with this planet." Harry stared, focusing in on the flapping sound, on the voice that seemed to be coming from everywhere, but was he was sure the distortion field in front of him.

"I was told you were pretty powerful." He said after staring into the whiteness and seeing; white, or possibly something, though he might have been imagining it.

"Your Lord of Time imposed a temporal orbit whilst I was feeding on the energy of his transcendence." The voice sounded angry.

"Recently?" He asked the voice, having decided it wasn't worth staring at the 'wall' or whatever he was trying to stare at to talk to.

"Time is meaningless." The voice sounded flat.

"You exist in the vortex, how can it be meaningless?" Harry queried, trying to assemble all the pieces that he was being presented with.

"Time is to us as oxygen is to you."

'This is going to get needlessly philosophical.' Harry thought to himself.

He really should have stayed at home, watched some TV, maybe read a book and waited with his rifle for whoever it was who'd been stalking him.

That reminded him, he needed to get the satellite images to go through. When he got out of this.

"So you've escaped now, from Earth." Harry tried after a while of silence, or it could have only been a moment, time it seemed, didn't exist here wherever he was.

"Yes, you are touched by the imprisoner and the wanderer."

Harry just mouthed to himself 'imprisoner and wanderer'.

"Oh you mean…oh…" He said after a moment.

"Good bye Harry Potter."

Then the world went white once more, more white, a different sort of white Harry mused as unconsciousness took him.

He awoke to the scent of horses and a smouldering fire.

"Wasn't that amazing Harry, Harry?" Ioan was kneeling over him.

"Being suckled for temporal energy, yeah. Helping Chronovores, sure amazing if one word for it." Harry pushed himself up from the ground. "And people knowing who I am before I introduce myself." Harry shook his head trying to awaken himself.

"Harry, you didn't see the amazing, brilliance of…" Ioan was looking at him oddly.

"No." He said shortly. "I need a drink." He said after a moment.

--//

_Author Notes:_

_I know some people may not like this chapter, but it's necessary to show the path that Ginny is currently on. I probably won't be doing such a focused chapter on Ginny again, I just needed to show something of Ginny before I head onwards. I also wanted to show something of George, Ron and Hermione's interaction with Ginny._

_I used the 'Present', 'Flashback' layout again as I wanted to keep the main 'Present' still moving onwards rather than going all the way back and going through what Ginny's been doing, it makes for a tighter narrative flow. _

_Extra points to everyone who gets all the Doctor Who references for this week. _

_Thanks for reading._


	16. Chapter 16

---

**Chapter 16**

_August 2001_

"Crucio!" Harry hissed, his wand crackling with energy, in this energy rich environment it wasn't the only think that was humming with energy, the walls, the floor…the 'equipment' around him was humming, screeching even.

The man slumped backwards in his chair as the spell hit him again showing the scars across his head, scars the man had done to himself insanely to make him impervious to and mental probing from magic or other means.

"Come on…you've got to break some time." Harry hissed half to himself, half to the man.

"Time is something _you_ said we don't have." Said a sardonic voice that rushed in from behind him.

"Your protections in place?" Harry wiped sweat and other things from his brow.

"Nothing's going to get in, but they're trying, your girlfriend included." She teased, despite where they were standing and what was happening. Maybe that was why he accepted her into LPI.

"She's not my…" Harry trailed off and hissed another curse at the man who was now trying to struggle out of the cable ties. He was also giggling.

"We don't have time for this." He let out a ragged breath.

"No….you don't Potter…" The man laughed, cackled even.

"Let me try." Judith said, watching the man carefully.

"We need…" Harry was cut off.

"I know what we need." She looked away from him. "Are you going to stay and watch?"

"I'll need to, whatever you have planned" He paused looking the man in the eye "There are ways of keeping someone conscious beyond the _normal_ cut offs." Harry drew in another breath of fetid air, avoiding smelling it, breathing only through his mouth.

_How in buggeration did I get this?_ Harry thought to himself, grabbing what looked like a pepper up potion from the man's table and grabbed at his mouth, hoping he didn't choke on it.

_March 2001_

"They've been gathering support, this faction." Hermione poked at the newspaper cutting, it was from the _Prophet_ all about a protectionist faction of the wizarding world.

He'd met Hermione in London to do a walk around looking for the CCTV cameras around where his mail forwarding company's offices were _that_ was the only way that _she_ could have found out where he lived.

"It can't have started after my small job for the Ministry?"

"Honestly, I can't believe the wizarding world _dumping_ their rubbish down a hole with radioactive material, _alien_ at that." No one in the café looked up, in fact they practically fitted in with all the posters advertising conspiracy magazines and meetings. Harry noted there was a group meet up in Shoreditch next weekend of one of the many groups.

"Well we both know how influential aliens have been on Earth."

"_You_ know Harry, I'm just watching from the sidelines."

"You could be more involved." Harry said idly, stirring pouring another cup of tea from the large pot that was sitting between them.

Hermione shook her head. "I've got too much work to do at university Harry."

Harry nodded. "I know, I know."

"I thought you were looking into recruitment." Hermione asked.

"A little bit hard. 'Hi I'm Harry I run an organisation I blackmailed the wizarding government into creating, we solve exotic problems, inter, extra and juxta- terrestrial.'"

"You're not going to use that line are you?"

"Why?" He asked.

"Sounds a bit like a comic book." She sniffed.

He wasn't going to ask how _she_ knew about comic books. "How's Ron?"

Hermione tensed. "Fine." There was a long pause of uncomfortable silence. "The last time I saw him."

Harry raised an eyebrow. Hermione looked away from him, taking Harry's fork from his currently untouched piece of cake and helping herself, Harry smiled and leaned back.

"Don't you grin at me Harry Potter." She pointed at him with the fork.

"We can talk about something else if you like." Harry continued to grin. "Please help yourself to my cake." Hermione glared at him.

She ate one small forkful of the cake before glaring at him again.

"Ron and I had a disagreement." She said after several minutes looking into her tea. It was full, so there was no chance of a prophecy being made.

"A disagreement." Harry repeated.

"You know that Viktor and I correspond?"

"Yes, so does Ron I thought." Harry said slowly, taking the second fork a waitress had surreptitiously placed beside him, smiling gently at him as he nodded a thank you.

"Well for a research assignment I wanted to do a long study of foreign language texts, and you know Viktor." Hermione smiled. "He offered to let me stay with him."

"Let me guess Ron got somewhat distressed and had a crisis."

"Only if we were in Jane Austen land Harry." She snorted. "This is good cake."

Harry merely nodded. "So he got a little bit angry then?"

"He drew his wand on me, started raving about how he was working away in the shop, how there were 'plenty of top girls' who 'wanted him'."

"I thought you liked his fierce loyalty and dedication."

"I thought you liked Ginny's dedication?"

"Yes but she's a raving lunatic who's stalking me. A little bit different." Harry added.

"Semantics." She said dismissively. "He was waving his wand around, he managed to fire off some spell, desiccated one of my cushions in my campus room."

"Oh…what did you do?"

"Stunned him and got a couple of the WW club to help me throw him off campus."

"WW?"

"Wizard and Witch club, they're a small support group for wizards and witches on campus, they provide easy access to Wolfsbane and other things for people on campus."

"Fascinating I didn't know there was such a thing." He said curiously.

"Neither did I. But good to know, and it's the only place that has a campus only access flu-network, for a price."

"A price?" Harry asked.

"Supposedly the ministry charges a huge monthly fee to keep it operational."

"Interesting to know. Don't suppose anyone can walk in though?" He pondered, Hermione shook her head.

"Members only."

"So you threw him out, literally?"

"Literally. I couldn't very well levitate him out of the campus."

"There's always the fireman's lift." Harry was met with a glare.

"Despite all our 'exercises' of our time at Hogwarts Harry, I wouldn't say I'm weak, but neither is Ron." Hermione sipped her tea alluding to all their running from danger and random acts of utter panic.

"You're still willing to forgive him." Harry asked, though it was more of a statement.

"Oh?" Hermione queried.

"I try to avoid saying _her_ name when I can. You're happy to say Ron's name." Harry explained.

"Worried you're going to set off a Ginny beacon, I know she's somewhat powerful but I very much doubt she would cast a taboo curse, or know how to." Hermione said, watching Harry.

"I know. Maybe I'm just pissed off that she's stalking me, and supposedly putting it out in certain circles that I'm a bit insane."

"For believing in aliens?" Harry nodded a shrug of indifference.

"As for Ron, some time apart might do us some good…and could you talk to him?" Harry opened up his mouth. "While you're in London?"

"Fine. If he's in the shop." Harry smiled. "Where all the hot ladies are."

Hermione's look could have frozen mercury.

"Or alternatively where all the guys are checking him out." Hermione shook her head. "Where Ron is moping about being caught off guard and thrown off campus?"

"Better Harry." He grinned at her.

--//

_April 2001_

Harry hefted the gun around to fire at another of the little blighters.

Pest control, that was what he was up to. If you could call extra-terrestrial cybernetic things pests.

He'd worked out they must have been left by the Cybermen, during either their 1970s invasion or when they'd come in the 1980s.

Now supposedly there was a little…whatever you called a group of breeding Cybermats making noise around the Ministry's foundations, down in the sewers, which were _not_ empty and were _not_ dry.

Harry wondered if he'd single handedly invented the 'glitter gun' however many years too early. But it wasn't anything so camp sounding. The ammunition he and Ioan had made with gold dust and a binding agent that would allow them to be fired from a paint ball gun.

Ioan had done most of that (boring) work, but he'd been insistent that he didn't want to go near the ministry 'or he might have an attack of Guy Fawkes'.

So it was as he was shooting several shots into what looked like the nest that he got somewhat of a shock when someone said his name, considering he was standing thigh high in waster water (and whatever else besides) in the dark, surrounded by dead Cybermats.

"What the Fu…"

"Harry Potter?" He swore as he turned around, pointing the gun at the voice and body attached to it.

Said body was a person, sitting on the bottom edge of a large pipe leading into this section of sewer.

"I could have shot you, what're you doing here?"

"Looking for you and your organisation." She said mysteriously.

"No organisation down here just that sewer water."

"And the Cybermats." She pointed out.

"How…" Harry started.

"You were chatting with your friend at a gig I was at, _The Sugar Quills_. We've also met before."

Harry didn't even bother, he just opened his mouth to give the pretence of speaking.

The woman, whom he couldn't really pick her age, probably around Ioan's age, or older, or younger quite possibly. She was definitely older than him. He looked around at her, trying to make out details. He could just about make out some dreadlocks hanging from her head in the light from his torches strapped to his chest and forehead.

"When you had a visitation of Kronos."

"What the buggeration?" He muttered.

"I'll talk later, one's trying to swim away." She nodded down in front of Harry. Harry cursed firing at it as it bobbed around on the water, blue sparks flowing around it as it did so. When he looked up the odd lady had disappeared.

Maybe he was hallucinating. He thought to himself.

"You still smell." Akilina wrinkled her nose at him as he sipped his drink.

"Thanks, Ioan would too if he hadn't opted out."

"You need back up." He countered.

"Hello Mr Potter." Harry didn't jump this time.

"Hello mysterious woman."

That was how she'd introduced herself.

He conducted his 'interview' in the beer garden.

Leaning back he hummed a the melody of "Party Like You're Evil" and idly wondered if the band's namesake would find it amusing that he had a band named after him. Harry thought probably not, he hadn't been sure how to react finding out there was a band named after _him_.

"So how'd you meet the Doctor?" He asked her after she mentioned travelling in time and meeting him,

"On Concorde in the 80s."

Harry nodded with a smile, letting her tell her story.

"So you're a Traveller then?" He asked at her story's end.

"I've travelled with them."

"What about magic?"

"What you phallocentric people get up with one another is your own business. The amount of penis shaped things in that world is laughable."

Harry stared at her.

"If Quidditch isn't about one-up-manship and groping phallus shaped objects then what is it about?"

"Grabbing a small hard to find flying ball." Harry said instantly.

"Never tried to find the g-spot have you?"

Harry was quite speechless. But he also liked her forthright odd ness, plus there was the wall of cool behind her eyes that gave him slight chills.

"Meet the newest member of LPI." He said returning to the pub as the band was just about finishing.

"Ioan this is Judith."

"He's another of you phallus waving stick men?"

"He was thrown out of the club for believing in aliens, so we're not going to be playing wave the penis at each other just yet." Harry commented off handedly.

--//

_June 2001_

Harry picked up the _Prophet _as he walked through the Alley way paying the merchant and ignoring the sideways looks he was getting.

It had taken him a while but he'd got the CCTV video along with the satellite imagery and other things. Disappointingly there wasn't something like an ASBO equivalent in the wizarding world.

He flipped through the paper looking for evidence of the 'group for the protection of wizard interests' which seemed to be (according to Hermione) a conservative group, not as bad as Voldemort, supposedly they didn't care about blood status, just the preservation of culture and belief. People were definitely looking at him he decided folding the paper in half and stuffing it into his bag and pushed open to the door to Weasley's Wizard Wezases.

Suddenly it was silent.

"You can almost hear a pin drop." He said looking around before people returned to what they were doing.

"Harry." He felt a clap on his back and tensed before he saw George.

"George."

"Why don't you come into my office."

"You mean the store room." Harry looked around at the people who were gradually going back to whatever they were doing.

"Exactly." He said a fixed smile on his face as he ushered him into the office/store room.

"Either you've been injected botox or your sister's been speaking about me again." Harry said throwing himself down into the offered chair, watching George scratch his ear as he joined him. "Ron still not around?" Harry asked, the last time on Hermione's request he'd stopped in Ron hadn't been around and now…

"He's just stepped out to pick up a fresh supply of live Billywigs." George paused. "Though he got the message about Hermione."

"Got the message though they're still not on speaking terms. _He's _angry that Hermione's still seeing Krum."

Harry shrugged. "Supposedly it's a nice mansion with a lot of history. It's part of her university research."

"Nothing to do with the 'hunky' Quidditch player." George asked, tapping his wand at a kettle and pouring siphoning water into a teapot.

"'Hunky?'"

George held up his hands. "Angelina's words not mine Harry."

"You don't have a secret lusting for a Bulgarian Quidditch player then?"

George laughed, really laughed. It was good to see him really laugh.

"No Harry." He said after getting his breath back. "Though you should see Ron when I suggested his obsession with Krum was something…you know…" George raised his eyebrow as Harry suggestively. Harry couldn't help but laugh.

"So you came for a reason Harry, not just to freak out my customers." George said after they'd both settled down with a mug of tea in their hands.

"What _was_ that about?"

George leaned back. "There's a rumour going around you like to spend time in crop circles. That's the polite rumour. I think a bit of eccentricity is good Harry." He paused. "You've got to do something while you're avoiding the press and your _fans_."

"I've got fans?" Harry asked.

George nodded. "I'm working on a set of goggles. 'The HP-glasses.' Makes everyone you see have green eyes…" George trailed off when he caught Harry looking at him. "Prototype only." He added quickly.

"Percentage of their sales?"

"You're a silent partner, we'll" He paused, scratching his ear again. "I'll never forget that Harry."

"I don't want…need to be a partner in this George. You knew that when I gave you and Fred that money." He said seriously.

"And you know Weasleys don't sit back and just accept things Harry." George said seriously, meeting his gaze. Harry met and held George's determined gaze. They held their stares for at least 5 minutes.

"You're not going to give up are you?" Harry said still staring at him.

"Nope." He smiled.

"George I…" The door suddenly opened and Angelina poked her head in. "Oh…Hi Harry. George I just wanted to grab some more snackboxes." George motioned with his wand and a box slowly levitated into her hands.

"Should I ask what you two are doing?"

"Probably not." Harry said blinking several times. "Fine. I won't argue with you." Harry put down his mug he'd been gripping.

"I'll leave you two to…your seductive staring competition." Angelina teased and shut the door.

Harry leaned to grab his bag. "I came about your sister."

"My sister." George repeated with a sigh. "You couldn't go and see mum and dad about this, or her?"

Harry shook his head.

"Fine. What's she done?"

"You sound like she's been doing something lately?" Harry asked, concerned, more for the anguish that it was causing George than anything.

"Aside from spreading rumours about you?"

Harry shrugged. "Aside from that."

"She's in with those 'wizard interest groups'."

"These guys aren't into the whole 'pure-blood are they'?" Harry asked George who shook his head.

"Not sure what they're up to."

"Probably plotting our downfall." Harry said morosely.

"Well? Don't leave me in suspense, what's my sister done to the great Harry Potter?"

Harry gathered the sheath of papers an spread it out for George.

"Oh. Dragon shit." George picked up the images, wobbling them. "Muggle?"

"Yep." Was all Harry said as he let George look through them. "I'm coming to you first. I need you to tell her to stop, I don't want to go _higher_ but I will." George looked up at him meeting his stare. "I'll take this all the way if I have to. But I don't want to do that, can you please impress upon her," He paused looking through the images pulling out the one from the CCTV footage. "The Ministry more than frowns on impersonating Ministry officials, I made preliminary investigations on how she was able to get the information, we're talking criminal actions George."

George dropped the pages. "You'd better not tell Ron about this, you know how he gets." He said heavily, scratching his ear again. Harry reached across the table, grabbing his arm, George looked at him and then to his arm.

"I didn't want to burden you with this, but I'm worried that if she can rationalise this."

"She's not dangerous Harry, she's my sister."

"Hmm." Harry said noncommittally.

"What else are you up to Harry?"

"I like my privacy and I don't want _her_ looking over my shoulder ever step of the way. It might get dangerous."

"More dangerous than Hogwarts Harry? More dangerous than giant snakes, Voldemort and Umbridge?"

"The universe is full of terrors we must face, evil that is fought, enemies to fight."

"Or it could be a game." George offered trying to lighten the mood.

"And your sister may think she's still in Hogwarts impersonating Ministry officials, but we're far from the school yard now, and the universe is a far more diverse place than she thinks."

"Aren't you going to ask me what I think?" George asked curiously.

"No. The 21st century is when everything starts to go awry and it's changing fast."

George studied Harry for a moment and nodded. "I'll tell her Harry. Just don't go to the Ministry."

"I won't, not about _her_ anyway." Harry stood up. "I'll leave you the photos."

"Harry." Harry paused by the door looking back at George. "Would you come…I mean would you like to come for dinner some time this week, with Angelina and I, I mean?" George asked, starting to scratch his ear but stopped when Harry looked back and smiled.

"Sure." He looked out from the door at the full shop. "Okay if I apparate from here, I don't want to startle your customers again."

"Startle away Harry, we'll charge everyone a fee for being in the presence of the 'great Harry Potter, saviour of the wizarding world, triumph of the light'."

"Man who will kick you if you don't shut it." Harry continued as he opened the door, Geroge chuckling behind him.

--//

_July, 2001_

"Charming places you bring me Harry." They were quite literally sitting on a river of shit; actually overflow water and shit. It'd been a particularly wet week.

"You didn't need to come Judith." Harry said, dipping the oar into the water again pushing them forward, their inflatable yellow dingy slowly making its way through London's underground water systems.

"Yes I did, you said 'Judith you can come along, enjoy the fun of being a pariah'." She said in a relatively good impression of him.

Harry paused and looked at her. "I said that?"

She shrugged. "I may have embellished a little." She looked around pointing the torch around the wet, stinking tunnels. "That way." She gestured with the torch at a right fork in a Y intersection.

Harry stared for a moment at the intersection trying to fit it back into his mental map of the system and nodded, mostly to himself.

They were entering this way as it was very discreet and the Cybermats had eaten a rather sizeable hole into the Ministry which had yet to be repaired.

The Ministry had requested he attend, through their usual clandestine letters, but this time it seemed oddly more urgent than others. If a letter could be urgent without resorting to howlers, bold-type or blood splatter.

"Why am I paddling if you know where you're going?" Harry asked after a moment of silence.

"I don't know where I'm going, only where I've been." She replied cryptically. Harry decided not to argue the logic of it. Then she added. "Here."

"Here specifically or here as in this is where the opening is?"

"What do you think, you're the one who knows what he's doing."

"Most of the time." He replied. "And to answer your question, it's a little further." Harry said taking another lungful of air, careful not to sniff the air.

The hole wasn't there, or rather it didn't appear to be there, unless you knew where to look.

The notice-me-not charm seemed to have only taken around some sections of the area, for a fleeting moment he wondered if he'd got all the Cybermats, but he shrugged it off, if they were all gone good, if not he'd probably be called back and he could waggle one of them in front of some Ministry officials' face.

Or not.

"Here."

"A wall."

"Look closer, what do you see?" Harry asked to Judith as he removed his wand.

"You getting your penis substitute out?"

"Concentrate." Harry said watching her as he used the oar to keep them steady.

Judith looked from him to the wall, cool eyes watching the wall she narrowed them.

"A wall with, something, something…" Then realisation dawned on her. "It doesn't want me to look at it, it's a something wall, something that doesn't want to be seen, but the wall around it, is just a wall." Harry smiled. "I could get the same affect chatting to some philosophy students about the nature of reality _and_ I wouldn't be down a sewer to do it."

Harry tapped the wall and the non-wall disappeared. "You wouldn't have the wonderous opportunity to step into the world of beuracracy and pig-headed disbelief in aliens if you hadn't come down a sewer with me."

"A chat up line if ever I heard one Harry." She said as she stepped in.

Harry joined her a moment later in a mildewed corridor which had a smell of mould, shit, and dead rodents.

"Where've you been?"

"Tying the dingy up, we wouldn't want to swim out."

"Front door no good?" She asked shining the torch around.

"The whole point is not to use the front door."

"But they give out badges!" She grinned at him. "How do you know whoever it is will be here."

"Hopefully they're already here."

"Very good Potter." Said the lady whose name he still didn't know. She walked out of the darkness with another person.

"Minister."

"Potter." He said, he sounded very much like he didn't want to be meeting him. He looked to Judith for a moment.

"This is an associate of mine."

"A muggle? You're indulging in their delusions also?"

"Muggle?" Judith looked to Harry before nodded. "Oh mugggle, right. Muggle power! Rock on."

Harry blinked and looked back the Minister and the lady whose name he was yet to know, both had turned their back on him.

He made a noise that he hoped sounded vaguely worried and indifferent but probably sounded more like "Uh…"

"Stop. Making. That. Sign." The Minister bit out in sharp words.

Harry turned slowly to look at Judith. She had her middle and ring fingers down, holding them with her thumb.

Whenever he'd been to see bands he'd seen people making the gesture.

"Umm…" He tried again. "Why?"

"That is the sign of the devil, it will raise The Destroyer, bring forth Azal, raise Abaddon, give corporeal form to Hastur the Unspeakable and allow Yog-Sothoth free reign on Earth." Shacklebolt intoned.

"Huh." Judith said dropping her arm. "Not just penis obsessed."

"No. Though unlikely. Azal's pretty dead, The Destroyer also dead, Hastur's probably not going to pop up any time soon, it had its big appearance in the 40s, I think Abaddon's under the Cardiff rift somewhere…have I missed anything?"

"Yog-Sothoth." Judith replied.

"You can turn around." Harry called while he was thinking to himself. "Dunno. I'm sure I've heard the name before. Probably dead as well or long gone."

"Potter how can you know these dark forces are dead?"

"Met the man who killed them, though technically Azal was killed by a woman. If we're done with whatever just happened, if I might ask, what do you want?"

--//

Harry sat at his dining table in thought, the leather bound folder sitting beside him, open. Judith was, he presumed browsing his bookshelves or something.

The photos had been relatively shocking.

The information and the threat were a surprise, but it made sense given their clandestine meetings in the bowels of the ministry.

"You ready talk this out or do I need to read more of _The Shoreditch Incident_?" Judith said sitting down across from him thumping the book down on the table beside him.

"That's a first edition."

"He printed a second?" She asked accusingly.

"Not sure never met him."

"Makes a difference, you not knowing a Doctor."

"I've met _him_, I meant the writer of the book."

"Well?" She asked.

Harry pushed over the photos and the accompanying letter.

They pictures showed a menagerie of magical animals including a unicorn, griffin, hippogriff, mooncalf and a few other creatures, additionally two figures, presumably a witch and wizard.

They were all dead as the wizarding photos showed the blood oozing out of their wounds and the occasional movement some of them would make in the various photos.

There was an accompanying letter;

_Muggles weapons did this._

_We have eyes everywhere your sneakascopes can't see. _

_We seek to protect our world from all external threats._

_The muggle world has succeeded where we have failed, now we must use their arms against them, lest they use them against us._

_Delusion and madness are the muggle's afflictions._

_We can and will stop all deviants within and without._

"Poetic isn't it." Harry said pulling out another sheet of paper.

"Only if you subscribe to the utter barking racial purity newsletter and picnic hamper." She said putting down the letter. "What's that?"

"Profile the lady who…" he was briefly cut off.

"The lady whom you have no idea of her name." She teased.

"_My _contact. She wrote it up. They were a pair of wizards" He was cut off again.

"Shouldn't that be witch and wizard?"

Harry sighed. "Witch and wizard who didn't have any direct connection to non-wizarding world people or anything like that."

"But?"

"But they did support a motion to de-regulate some texts concerning extra-astrological predictions." Harry thumbed through then parchment carefully reading the definition.

"Aliens?"

"Or something like that. That's what all the delusion, mad and deviant stuff is about."

"Full blown conspiracy then, if they're that worried about corruption within the government."

"Corruption isn't the problem, there's plenty of that, but this is extremist corruption." Harry passed her the parchment.

"So what do they want, even when though I was there I'm fuzzy on what happened." She glared at him.

"I didn't cast the privacy charm. I apologised, you know that."

Judith shrugged. "Well?"

"Investigate. The Minister doesn't want Department of Magical Law Enforcement into this incase they're compromised. Plus the mention of 'deviants' has got them jumpy."

"So this is the investigations side?"

"What I pay you for." Harry said.

--//

Harry opened the back of the Land Rover Defender, his new vehicle he'd purchased to go everywhere that he needed to carry things, or drive places that didn't have optimal ground clearance, plus he'd got a defence discount.

"What are we looking for?" Ioan asked as he took the offered torch Harry was holding out.

"A killer, or probably nothing."

"Or something dangerous. This has _Scooby-Doo_ all over it."

"I was thinking Agatha Christie." Harry commented.

"I thought more _Midsommer Murders_." Ioan commented.

"Going by the photos we'll probably end up with _Halloween_." Judith said brightly.

"Marvellous." Harry muttered. "I think I'm glad I _haven't_ seen that movie."

"That's what you get for a secularised education in a magical school cut off from society in the mountains."

"I've also experienced enough of the blood, torture and mental anguish first hand."

"Yet here we are." Judith said pushing open the door to the unassuming country house.

This was the house of the witch and wizard, Harry knew their names, it was written on the report he'd read, but he needed to remain slightly disconnected from them to investigate this with a clear mind. That was what he was thinking to himself anyway.

--//

They hadn't found much, but what they had found had been oddly disturbing in a new way.

Flyers for the various 'wizarding interest groups' spread around. Including one baring a photo of a certain ex-girlfriend of his.

"This is totally screwed up." Ioan said gesturing the flyer. "'Protecting Interests against Delusion and Deviancy.'" Ioan said quote from the flyer. "'Interventions, interception and durance'."

"What does Durance mean?" Harry asked distractedly looking out the wing mirror of the Transit van they were driving.

"Imprisonment I think, old meaning though. Some girlfriend you've got."

"Ex." Harry said watching out of the mirror. "And quite…"

"Mad?" Ioan offered.

"Not on Voldemort's level…yet." Harry commented as he grabbed the radio on the dash. "We're coming up to the target now Judith, you ready?"

"_And waiting Harry._"

"Good. Hang on." He said as turned the wheel and brought the van to a sudden halt, its rear doors in front of their 'target'.

Judith was moving before the van stopped and had the needle into the woman's neck before she had a chance to disapparate.

She scooped the woman's wand into a tube and sealed it before dragging her into the rear of the van.

--//

Information was what they were sorely lacking.

It had been relatively simple to find the nearest meeting of Ginny's 'group' and find a member said group to question. Though walking in and getting chummy with them wasn't an option, Harry knew he was too well known and Ioan while not as notorious as Harry was to them still 'known' to people, especially of Ginny's mental…state.

Their decided upon tactic wasn't exactly sublte, but as far as kidnapping and induced hallucinatory interrogation it was as subtle as they were going to get.

"You're sure this isn't going to kill her?" Harry asked looking at the syringe, but not touching it. Judith was the only one that was going to be touching anything relating to the 'subject', just to make sure there was no transfer of magical signature.

"You said we needed results and a slow progression through their ranks wouldn't work."

Harry nodded, the ministry was getting antsy. A testament to this was the further photos the minister had forwarded his way. That and a weapon that had detonated in a magical reserve it had left "un-identified residue" and a potions substance. Ioan had had Akilina confirm the unidentified substance as an explsive compound. The Ministry couldn't storm _Ginny_'s group and those affiliated to it, they needed proof.

Harry still wasn't sure that it was _Ginny_'s group doing. All they seemed to do was give out flyers and vilify him.

They didn't seem like the murdering people to prove a point type, though _Ginny_ did have a darkness about her, ever since her contact with Tom. That danger was something that tantalized him on occasion.

Harry shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

Ginny's group and those that had seemingly sprung out of the woodwork also needed to get money from somewhere. George had confirmed that _Ginny_ wasn't getting any money from him or his parents as far as he knew.

"You're sure that you'll be able to get something?"

Judith fixed him with a cool stare. "Yes Harry. I will get us something…usable."

"Without any lasting damage."

"Of course." She smiled dangerously. "Ioan, turn on the lights." The lights were almost unbareably bright.

Harry nodded to her and stepped away to a small observation room where Ioan was waiting, looking slightly uncomfortable.

"Problems?" Harry murmured.

Ioan made an indifferent noise.

"It's the kidnapping and whatever Judith's going to do isn't it?"

Ioan made another indifferent noise as he mucked around with the camera feed.

"We are working to a time limit here."

"And we need answers. I know." He replied.

"Judith ensures me that nothing…lasting will happen."

"You could be in there, mesmerizing her."

"I could." Harry turned his attention to the monitor. "But Judith wants me to know that she's capable. We also shouldn't be involved, we don't need them turning even further towards the wizarding world."

"Whoever they really are."

"Indeed." Harry muttered.

--//

_August, 2001_

Harry changed gear again as they continued up the rough track that lead to the house.

Judith sat next to him studying the readout from the energy detector, _not_ Sarah Jane Smith's though. Harry had finnaly got the plans out of the annoying metal dog, though his was bulkier and heavier and far more cumbersome than Sarah's. Harry suspected K-9 did it deliberately just to annoy him. He'd resolved to refine the design.

"Keep on going." Judith muttered, looking from it to what she and he had termed a 'magic fallout indicator' a mix of magical elements and potion ingredients that would react when they passed into an area that had been used to test weapons like the one they were looking for.

_The muggles must be taught that magic enhances all, we will triumph_

_Their sustain delusions must be cleansed in the fire of a dragon's roar_

_We will prevail_

It had been an ominous letter that had come a few weeks after several thefts of dragons from high profile dragon sanctuaries.

It was somewhat annoying that their 'questioning' had lead to several leads to many high profile and utterly mad relatively well off to the obscenely rich people.

"This has to be the guy, no one would live this far off the beaten track." Harry said as he changed gear again, the path they were travelling along seemingly had been deliberately made more rough following its creation.

"Says someone who lives almost as far south as you can go on the mainland. With your sports cars and alien equipment." Judith challenged with a quick smile in his direction.

"I run an organisation, a League investigating that sort of stuff Judith, I don't go around blowing up stuff."

"Not indiscriminately at least." She offered helpfully.

"Precisely. Well are we getting close or should I turn around" He paused. "Well reverse backwards in any case."

"No…I think we may be getting somewhere."

That of course was the exact moment people started shooting at them.

Harry planted pushed his foot down and changed down a gear and cringed, the paint work and the Defender itself was tough and so unfortunately were the spells that people were currently flinging at them.

"Grab the shotgun." Harry shouted over the din of spell fire.

"Ammo?"

"Rubber buckshot, behind you." Harry said as he returned his focus to driving.

"How courteous of you, they are shooting at us."

"And they might not be the real enemy." He said as Judith wound down the window.

That was one of the things they had managed to confirm, though not convince any of the groups that were involved that they were (probably) being used by others for their own nefarious ends. Harry had even (tried) to convince Ginny. He'd even decided to start using her name. But…she had been less receptive, she'd tried to stun him, then she'd attemped to incapacitate him and one of her 'friends' had thrown something viscous at him which had involved him spending sometime under a hazardous materials shower trying to get himself cleansed of whatever it was.  
Another spell hit the rear of the Defender shattering the back window. Harry sighed to himself, obviously he'd be using his insurance a little sooner than he thought. Then he felt something shoot into the cabin and there was a flapping or black flesh around them.

"What the f---" Judith's voice was lost to the bats. "are these?"

"I wouldn't worry too much, it's just a bat bogey hex." Harry said almost too casually as they reached the peak of the hill and the energy detector started to make annoying noises.

Harry grabbed the second shotgun and pushed the door open, thankful there were no people near the house, no one shooting at them at least.

"Go, I'll mark out a perimeter." Judith said as he looked over at her.

It didn't take long to find the professor's lab, all roads lead to Rome they say and all cables in a lunatic's house lead naturally to the ballroom.

"I knew you'd come." Harry almost groaned, both at the smell, the sight and the first sentence the mad man spoke as he walked in.

"Oh goody. Stupefy." Harry said throwing the man into a collection of equipment.

Harry tapped his wand against the man, waking him up, roughly. He needed answers, soon.

While the letter had been somewhat vague, the Ministry's seers had not, mostly it had been a wail or a scream. Not that the Ministry or he himself put a lot of stock in them. But as Ioan, Judith and Hermione had pointed out to him, technically he knew the future, so why not others? The difference was his source was slightly more credible.

Something large and probably catastrophic was looming on the horizon, though whether it was an immediate threat or the various aliens that were just around the corner that was another question entirely.

He'd already tried Legilimency on the man, and there was enough, a small bit of an idea, enough to tease him about what the man really knew.

Something dangerous and grand, at least the man thought so.

"The great Harry Potter. An honour. Your lady friend speaks very eloquently about you." The man grinned at him.

"Where is it?" Harry asked.

"My finest creation. You like my experiments, you a believer in _aliens_ I'm sure would." He babbled.

Harry noted the man had an accent, but it seemed like a mishmash of about five different ones.

"What sort of 'creation'?" Harry asked casually as he looked around the room, the stench was something rotting in the corner, something the general size of a small dragon that was hooked up to…something that was making its chest rise and fall, though its organs were exposed and pulsating.

Harry hoped the mad man didn't catch him looking, but as he looked back to the man who was already struggling against the cable ties he had a twinkle of insanity in his eye.

"I see you appreciate what muggle science can do to allow the extraction of such a valuable element."

"What would that be?"

"But not the only one. See." He nodded on the other side of the room something caught Harry's breath, the unmistakable half spheres of a Dalek's casing.

Then he blurted out. "You really are mad." It was probably something he shouldn't have said. But the man laughed nonetheless.

"My followers thought I a genius, if only the knew I was using the things they thought not to exist."

Totally and utterly barking. Harry thought to himself looking around the room, searching for something big and dangerous, or just dangerous.

His eye fell onto a map finned to the blood flecked walls. It was like…it was like when he'd been slammed face first into the gravestone by Voldemort's minions and had either blacked out or seen stars or whatever, a flash of something either the result of the sulfur, ammonia and chlorine assault his senses, it was a mild revelation.

Not that it meant anything, it just, it was just that the map _meant_ something.

Harry shook his head and tried to refocus on the map, it was a map England.

"You appreciate what I am working towards Harry Potter. You understand the workings of power, you have fought it and you understand the power of muggles and aliens."

"Really." Harry muttered looking at the map, the insane man didn't seem to be struggling against the cable ties. Harry looked at his watch, _that_ was something the seers had been relatively sure about, even though he didn't like to put his life in their hands. The Doctor had in a roundabout way said that if there was a large enough disturbance, big enough to punch backwards through the vortex receptive individuals _might_ pick up on such thing.

They were working towards an estimated time of whatever it was that was going to arrive.

Harry looked to the map again, trying to force or trick himself into picking out of his brief Legilimency encounter something.

The man was laughing, or chuckling.

Out of spite Harry hurled a Cruciatus curse at the man, and held it, he felt the sustained use of the spell tug at him briefly giving him that surge that he'd felt what felt like ages ago.

Though now instead of the rush it was more a desperate annoyance filled jump.

The man slumped down, breathing heavily.

"Stronger…" The man swallowed. "Stronger than I thought."

Harry slid his wand into a secure pocket and tilted the man's head back.

"What are you hiding. 10 people dead."

"That you know of. Your lady and her friends have been very…useful." He chuckled. Harry stared into his eyes.

"Tell me. You will tell me!… _Legilimens_. He whispered as he stared, whispering barely audible words to the man as he convulsed under his grip.

This time it was just images, ideas. Why the man couldn't just tell him, be even slightly submissive…it would make things far easier.

That was the problem with mad people.

Harry stepped back, he felt sweat itching down his front and back. Nothing, just ideas, images, plus fawning attention from Ginny and her lackeys. The man was doing that just to annoy him. _He_ was annoyed that it annoyed him as much as it did.

Though he forced himself not to think about that, he needed to focus on the 'event' that was approaching.

"It's a bomb." He whispered after collecting himself. The man giggled.

"You see. Muggles only understand large statements. They'll realise not to mistake us or the non-terrestrials."

"Tell me where!" He almost roared, if what he knew so far was any indication this wasn't going to be a little pop.

"I have something your lady friend has also."

"Utter barking insanity?" Harry asked flippantly.

"Dedication." Harry really wished he knew the man's name. If only to yell the man's name at him. The small tantalizing things he'd scraped from the man's mind revealed very little, however those small pieces were like chilli on the tongue in a desert. Harry stared at the man and wondered why he'd come up with that metaphor.

"Crucio!" Harry let go of the curse almost immediately. "I've also got dedication you insane bastard." He hissed.

Harry bit out another curse at the man.

"Come on…you've got to break some time." Harry hissed half to himself, half to the man.

"Time is something _you_ said we don't have." Said a sardonic voice that rushed in from behind him.

"Your protections in place?" Harry wiped sweat and other things from his brow.

"Nothing's going to get in, but they're trying, your girlfriend included." She said, Harry wasn't sure how long she'd been in the room. She still appeared to be studying and taking in everything in the room with a cool head and a calm eye, it was somewhat odd. Maybe that was why he was glad she was here.

"She's not my…" Harry trailed off and hissed another curse at the man who was now trying to struggle out of the cable ties. He was also giggling.

"We don't have time for this." He said preparing himself for another bout of spell casting, that was the problem with insane people. Interrogation was far more complicated.

"No….you don't Potter…" The man laughed, cackled even. It was annoying.

"Let me try." Judith said, watching the man carefully.

"We need…" Harry was cut off.

"I know what we need." She cut him off with a stare Harry nodded. "Are you going to stay and watch?" She asked.

"I'll need to, whatever you have planned" He paused looking the man in the eye "There are ways of keeping someone conscious beyond the _normal_ cut offs." Harry drew in another breath of fetid air, avoiding smelling it, breathing only through his mouth.

_How in buggeration did I get this?_ Harry thought to himself, grabbing what looked like a pepper up potion from a side table and threw it at the man, some of it even went in his mouth, whatever they were going to do Harry didn't want him dying, not until they got the information they needed.

The noise outside was getting louder Harry just watched the man as Judith gathered up equipment.

"Fortunate you've got these." She said casually as she wheeled a trolley over, Harry was relatively sure they were shock paddles. "And that you've embraced muggle power so readily." She stared at him coolly in the eye and ripped open his shirt. "Clear." She said as though she was discussing the weather and twisted the controls on the defibrillator unit.

The man went rigid and Harry swore he saw sparks flying around the room.

"Interesting." Was all Judith said. "How long is it until brain death occurs?" She asked him or maybe herself.

"I said we needed him alive." Harry said unable to form a tone for how he was feeling at the moment.

"No you said we needed the information. I think it's three minutes. Clear." She said shocking the body and then searched around on the table she'd wheeled over and grabbed a syringe.

Then the man screamed, a guttural, yell of pain and emotion.

Then Judith whispered something into his ear and then she attached the paddles to his chest again.

Harry'd pretty much lost count of what drugs Judith had pumped into the man's system, and now he was crouched next to the man, listening to him talk in a semi-lucid state.

"…Dragon blood has 12 uses….you know…you know Dumbledore…Potter…not talked about…one of the uses…not known…energy enhancement…had to get a dragon to experiment on…" Then he lapsed into more mumbling. Harry massaged the brim of his nose and then regretted it immediately and wiped his fingers on his grubby pants. "Do it." He muttered to Judith who syringe in hand pumped whatever concoction which she'd muttered to him would probably kill him, as if stopping his heart half a dozen times was going to lengthen his life.

"Ready?" Harry asked as he scooped up the shotgun as he levelled his wand at the door.

"Yeah." She said pumping the shotgun. "Where are we heading?"

"My place, we've got to get away from here first, then I can sort out the dragon."

"And save the world." She said with a smile as Harry blasted the doors outwards and the spells started flying in.

Harry started shooting quite indiscriminately. Less lethal was usually the term for the weaponry they were using. Though currently with the threat facing them he didn't actually give a shit who he shot.

The all of sudden he was at the door of his previously new now it looked like it'd been through the wars Defender.

"You got a plan Harry?"

"Drive and then apparate." Then they started shooting at them again and screaming, Harry was sure he could hear Ginny's screech in amongst the voices.

"Just drive stick-boy and let me concentrate." Harry flawed it without asking what and tried not to look at his watch.

The 'interrogation' had taken longer than he would have liked. Though they had the info. He spared a look to Judith who was gripping the dashboard like a woman possessed…that said she looked like…

Then everything went white and he slammed his foot on the break as the courtyard loomed out of the mists in front of him.

"How?"

Judith was slumped over. "Trans-substantiation on the ethereal plane. Very dangerous." She murmured before passing out. 

He didn't have the time to argue as he dropped the shotgun and ran towards one of the stables where he kept his new broom and radio equipment.

Harry kicked off from the ground as he strapped his Quidditch goggles onto his head and dug around in the bag he'd grabbed, the radio sitting uncomfortably strapped to his ear.

"Eagle, Eagle, Eagle. This is Raven Leader. Uniform Charlie Romeo. Authorisation code Yankee Nine Five Three." Harry briefed a look away from the the direction he was travelling faster than he had any reasonable person had reason to be travelling, especially without the use of any engine.

Harry breathed a slight breath out, even despite the static in his ear, the radio was tuned to a very specific radio frequency and he hoped they were scrambling fighters as he spoke.

He just hoped he found what they needed to fire at soon, and that firing at it would save everyone.

Otherwise they could probably kiss London, Greater London and probably England goodbye.

He grappled with one hand for a shielded GPS unit he'd stuffed into the satchel that the radio and other useful things was in and checked his position and hoped insane man's dying words were correct. It was possible that he had lied out of spite, but something about not just what Judith had done but the what she had whispered to the man when she thought he wasn't looking, it made him relatively sure he wasn't.

He was on the correct bearing, but…nothing yet.

"_Raven Leader, this is Eagle Leader, received Uniform Charlie Romeo. Authorisation code received and accepted. Nature?"_

"Stand by Eagle Leader." Harry said very quickly as a bloody great huge mother of a beast practically dropped out of the clouds on top of him. Harry gripped his broom pulling back on it cutting his forward motion to nothing and began reversing, something that would have made some of the hardest Quidditch players loose their lunch.

He let out a few choice words as he tried to regain control and perspective.

The reports had got it well wrong. The beast was huge. A dragon, a Hungarian Horntail, he was relatively sure.

But it was bloated and…dripping. Harry pushed his broom forward ones again, battling against the beat of the dragon's wings. He cringed, he could see the suture marks, the stitches holding _it_ in.

He pulled back again and hit the radio button.

"Eagle Leader, coordinates are…" Harry said as he grabbed at the GPS and read out the coordinates, while with the other hand fumbling around in the satchel, gripping the broom tightly with his thighs.

All that Quidditch practice that he thought he'd never use again was coming into its own.

Although a little more than a game was resting on the outcome of this current situation, and if he plummeted to his death there'd certainly be no one to cackle at their plan having succeeded. At least he had small mercies.

There was a pause of static. "_Scrambling fighters. Target?_" Said the very cool voice, professional, military, unquestioning. Harry, very happy that he had taken the time to memorise how to call in military support.

Though at this moment he doubted they would be able to see the target, the dragon had to be not visible to radar, otherwise by now there would be something.

He hoped the laser designator he'd brought with him worked. 'Dragons give off a negligible amount of heat, that is despite their biological functions with regards to fire breathing ability', Hermione's voice swum away as quickly as it had dropped into his consciousness.

He was really starting to wish he'd read Dumbledore's dissertation on the 12 uses of dragon blood that was in Hermione's possession.

"Eagle Leader. Target is on the move. Target is…" Harry stopped, trying to think of a way of putting it. "Target is not visible, I am currently following Target, painting Target."

"_Confirmed Raven Leader._"

Harry quickly added. "Target does not give off heat signature…I do though." He said quickly.

There was a slight chuckle. "We won't hit you Raven Leader. Eagles 1 minute inbound."

The minute stretched as time and uncertainty do.

Harry took the time as he held the laser designator in front of him to run over what would happen if they didn't stop the dragon, or more to the point what was planned.

An energy enhancer, that was the gist of it.

One of the uses of dragon blood was to enhance energy, multiply it, given the right stimulus.

A Dalek had a powerful enough power supply for it to take out an aircraft carrier.

In a run away reaction it produced a solid bang, according to Ace.

But if what he'd surmised and found out from 'the insane man' it was sitting within the dragon, and now was building towards an explosion which would be magnified through the dragon's blood.

'And burn…more powerful than any muggle weapon ever devised.'

He heard the fighters before he saw them, not that he could turn around to see them with the laser designator sitting cradled in front of him.

The first missiles slammed into the dragon causing it to roar and thrash…and of course turn around to look at him, as if he didn't have enough troubles.

"_Holy shit! Eagle 1 to Raven Leader respond?"_

"This is Raven Leader. Please tell me you can see the dra…the Target?" Harry asked as calmly as he could as he held onto the laser designator with one hand and pulled of an almost barrel role over the dragon's tail.

"_Confirmed, lit up what the hell is it?"_

"Destroy the Target!" He all but snarled as he dropped the designator. He guessed the British government wouldn't be too happy he'd be requesting another. They hadn't been happy about giving him that one.

"It needs to be out of the air!" He shouted again, though he wasn't sure if he was shouting to himself or the fighters.

Harry twisted up, corkscrew like away from the dragon firing off a range of damaging spells at the dragon, hoping that something might get it as he attempted to miss getting garroted by fighters that appeared to have come from all directions.

"_Navy is re-positioning, stand by_ _Raven Leader._" Said the cool military voice in his ear.

Then as he watched several missiles flew out from behind him slamming into the dragon and exploding, exposing flesh.

"Continue firing!" Harry shouted, he guessed he could see the device exposed within the dragon, but with the aircraft around him not just firing missiles but spewing cannon fire, their projectiles hitting the exposed flesh of the dragon making it start to fall, the fighters continued swarming around it as it fell it seemed to rip itself into pieces.

Then it exploded and everything went a little bit white.

--//

--//

_Author Notes:_

_I want to say sorry for this chapter taking so long._

_It has been through at least four different versions. _

_The first came in at about 1500 words and wasn't going anywhere. _

_The second got to 2700 or so words and I was writing the first 'action sequence' bit to it and…I just stopped and stared at it and thought 'none of this is really flowing'._

_The third version got to about 1200 words. _

_The issue with this chapter is that I wanted to introduce Judith, who's always been in my long term plan and she's always been part of the Travellers. But having a 'character introduction chapter' is a bit boring and exposition heavy._

_This version is what came out of going back and looking at what and how I wanted to do this chapter. I know this is another 'flashback' formatted chapter. But it's a very effective way to write, hitting the ground running and all that. _

_It's still got issues that I'm not totally happy with, the pacing isn't as consistent as I'd like._

_I started with a very simple idea and then worked backwards how to explain that sequence (with Harry on his broom ordering an airstrike). That particular sequence and the very first paragraph of this story were the two that were very clear when I started writing, the rest of the story I wrote in bursts of motivation. _

_At one point I almost decided to scrap this chapter and just go straight into 2002 with a paragraph that went something like: 'Harry leaned sat outside listening to the wind whip around him, last year had been such a quiet year, no alien invasions, no threats to humanity, no huge problems with the ministry…though he doubted it could keep on like that…'. But at that point I was at the 6500 word mark and didn't want to wipe it all out a fourth time._

_I've drifted a little ways away from my original premise of this story with this chapter, so this is what's coming up next and future chapters:_

_Next chapter will feature the Doctor, Hermione and Harry…and probably unicorns. It will also be set partially in San Francisco._

_The chapter after that will begin a small arc. That chapter will most likely have the words 'rip', 'flying', 'watermelon' and 'mad'. It will also probably feature a secret base and dinner at a country house. _

_It will also feature the Doctor and another well known, though not featured thus far character. Plus several other relatively known (though people who haven't appeared) characters._

_More of a return to the Doctor being present in the chapters than not present. Though, the Doctor doesn't actually visit Earth all that much during 2001, hence his absense during this chapte. _

_Ron is quickly becoming the 'heard but never seen' character. Sorry for all the Ron fans. He'll probably genuinely appear at some point. _


	17. Chapter 17

---

**Chapter 17**

He'd been here for as good as he could reckon it about 5 days, give or take.

Concussion _and _being blown up by a dragon based nuclear sized weapon tended to do that to your immediate memory following said events.

He pushed himself up in the bed and winced, no matter how many times he broke his ribs, it never got any more comfortable. He'd had a look early yesterday morning, the first time he'd been able to go to the toilet without being in total and complete agony.

The bruising was…significant, and that was only the parts he could see that wasn't covered by bandages.

Even pissing hurt.

"You're awake Mr Potter."

No shit. Harry thought to himself. "And lucid, doctor." He said to the army doctor whom he had completely and totally failed to establish a rapport with. It may have had something to do with the first time he awoke, his second day here and his subsequent successful hypnotising of the doctor to let him leave…and then his rather unfortunate realisation that his injuries were rather more severe than he'd realised when he'd collapsed not far down the corridor.

"You have a visitor Mr Potter."

"Just one? All for myself?" He couldn't stop himself from being sarcastic, it helped.

In walked in a military man. High ranking he surmised though he couldn't place the rank. Air force ranks wasn't something he'd taken a large amount of time out to study.

"Mr Potter. I trust you're well." Said the man, his voice sounded relatively familiar.

"You were the voice on the radio." Harry murmured. The man smiled.

"The doctors tell me you're curious as to how you came to be here, and what happened."

That was one way of putting it Harry thought to himself. The doctors _didn't _have said information, nor did they know where his clothing, wand and everything else he'd had with him.

Harry didn't say any of this, he merely inclined his head. He was 'very fortunate' that he had no spinal injuries.

"Or is it that you failed to extract any information from our medical staff?" The man asked him, he had turned away from him, looking at the wall that Harry thought should have contained a window.

"Yes." Harry said shortly.

"Her Majesty's Government would like to thank you for your efforts in dealing with the threat." He said turning back to him, looking at him.

"Just doing my job." Harry said meeting his gaze. "Can I know where I am and what happened?" He asked.

"You don't remember?"

"Fighting the…target, yes. The final moments are somewhat blurry." He said, shifting in the bed again.

"Your…levitation device cushioned you from much of the explosion, but it blew you backwards and fell onto one of our Harriers." Harry raised both eyebrows at this. "Gave our boys a shock. Your were brought here for treatment."

Harry nodded to himself. Looking again to the drip that was in his arm, a minor pain killer and saline drip.

He'd considered over the past few days apparating out of here. Today was the first day that he'd felt like he _might_ be able to.

Which probably meant he shouldn't.

After some silence Harry spoke once more. "Was there any…wreckage?"

"From the target?" The Royal Air Force man asked. Harry nodded.

"There has been an operation in progress for the last few days. A member of your organisation Ioan Hrycek is facilitating our efforts."

"And beating back…other efforts from other…" Harry sighed. "Listen…Group Captain what do you know so we can stop beating around the bush?"

The Group Captain smiled at him. "The remains of the _dragon_ are being cleared up as we speak. Torchwood, UNIT and the another political group have expressed their interest in recovering the remains."

"Would this political group be of the stick waving variety?"

"Perhaps. Though I couldn't say officially. All groups have been informed the British Armed Forces is quite qualified to deal with this issue."

Harry nodded once more. "So does my organisation know of my predicament?"

"Mr Hrycek has been informed." Was the answer.

"How long until I will be released?"

"I was under the impression that you could leave at any time." The Group Captain asked curiously.

Harry smiled. "How long until I can walk out of here and are my personal affects around?"

"I can have your affects brought to you, those that weren't damaged, soiled or otherwise in the explosion." Then he nodded and left the room.

It felt good to know his wand was safe.

He wasn't too tempted to try and heal himself with it though. He didn't want to attempt even some rudimentary spells, not the way he was currently feeling.

He was sure he had some 'Sisterhood Salve' lurking somewhere at his house that would fix up some of these injuries.

Looking over his chart it had been amazing how well he'd fared, considering he'd landed on top of Harrier jump jet.

He was infinitesimally thankful that he hadn't plummeted to his death.

Pity his broom hadn't been so lucky. However, the surgeons had done a good job removing the bits of wood from his hands and thighs, where it had shattered at some point from the explosion. He was also amazingly thankful said wood hadn't punctured any of his reproductive organs, the surgeons had said that he'd been very lucky on that account.

--//

Now though, 10 days since he'd been admitted the doctors had grudgingly said he could leave.

Not that he was going to apparate, not just yet.

They also weren't telling him where he was, not that it really mattered, they all occupied secret areas of the government and what not, they had their secrets he had his.

"Judith."

"Harry, I won't go all sentimental and say you're alive." Harry shook his head, gently. The pain killers he'd been given this morning were still lingering though.

"You make me drive all the way out to Dorset and not even a thank you."

"That would be too sentimental. Especially with all these British Army people around." Harry gestured vaguely, most were looking at his Defender, which until recently had looked new. "Do you think I can claim this as regular wear and tear?"

"Being shot at by your _ex­-girlfriend _and her fellow mad luddites you mean?" She asked as he got in.

"Yes, that. Though 'insane man'." He was cut off.

"You never meet normal people with names do you?" She asked as she started the engine.

"I met you." He said, she laughed.

"You were saying?"

"Insane man seemed to suggest _she_ didn't know about the…" He paused. "Slicing open and testing of the dragons."

"He did," She conceded "but then _he was_ insane Harry."

"Probably. Maybe I'm just trying to come up with reasons not to need to kill her." He said leaning back into the seat.

"Is that what you think you'll need to do?" She asked calmly, very calmly.

"Depends. All those flyers we found suggested her group's more political and ideologically based. Though I think they're capable of going to the next level."

"You've been thinking about this then?" She said as she turned off the dirt road.

"Not much in the way of literature to read whilst in a secret military hospital. But insane man did seem to suggest he'd been using her and her group for his own means."

"Like minions." Harry smiled at her comment.

"Yes." He affirmed.

"They're still dangerous, especially now that they know that you and I killed him."

"Yes…about that." Harry opened his eyes to look over at her. "It wouldn't be good for there to be evidence lying around."

She looked at him and smiled coolly. "After I recovered I went back, all the alien tech's in one of your barns. His house was unexpectedly destroyed in a gas bottle explosion." She said as though they were talking about the weather.

Harry closed his eyes once more, listening to the wind whistling through the shattered and badly patched up windows and damaged doors and roof. "Good. Thank you."

"Part of the job." Without even opening his eyes he could tell she'd just shrugged.

"Any wand waving bastards come looking for me while I've been…"

"Living it up in a secret military facility? Co-educational showers, giant bugs…"

"That's _Starship Troopers_." Harry muttered opening his eyes to stare at the roof of the Defender, it had bite marks in it, and what looked like the remains of a bat indented with the shape of the end of a shot gun.

"I think I'll just keep this for getting around my property." He said mainly to himself.

"No one. Except your friend Hermione, she stopped by while I was cleaning up after destroying insane man's house." She said casually.

"What'd you tell her?" He asked curiously.

"The truth." She said simply.

"And?"

"She swore, said it was typical of you. Asked me to tell you to call her, or she'd start annoying the government."

Harry smiled.

--//

Harry leaned back into his study chair.

He was still on strictly 'light duties', that was what the doctors at the military hospital had said for him to do anyways.

Swiveling on his chair he pulled out the newspaper article out from under the scanner and slipped in the next photo from a cardboard box he had dug out of his 'things to do later'. Said cardboard box contained research he'd started when he'd been at Hogwarts in the local Little Whining library and something he'd continued to look into. Various random things about UNIT and then also Torchwood.

It was mainly something of a curiosity, but was all the more intriguing as he got further involved and curious.

Though he'd collected a lot of information prior to forming the League of Paranormal Investigations, he'd put a lot of the information into boxes and on hold as each crisis had presented itself.

But it was calming, interesting work, that didn't involve being blasted at, shot at, thrown backwards by explosions, getting concussion, having ribs broken or any other fun injury that he'd incurred.

Exactly on time someone knocked on the door.

"Hey Hermione."

"You're an insane idiot Harry Potter." She said as she threw her arms around him.

"Hello to you too. Come in. We don't want any spies seeing us." He muttered.

"You really think that _she's_ still spying on you?"

"After I shot her and her associates you mean?" Harry asked casually as they walked through to his kitchen where he started to fill the kettle with water.

Hermione was oddly silent. Harry turned around to look at her.

"What?" He asked as she pulled out a newspaper.

"I picked this up at the university WW club." She handed him the paper, it was folded over to a certain page.

_Harry Potter in murderous alien fuelled dragon massacre!_

_By Rita Skeeter_

"Isn't she dead yet?" Harry said as he leaned against the sink.

Hermione screwed up her face. "No."

"Oh…it's an 'exclusive interview with the harpy Ginny Weasley!' So spare me reading the sensationalist pig vomit, anything interesting?"

"How do you know I've read it?" Hermione asked. Harry raised an eyebrow at her.

"Oh fine. But first tell me what happened with you and how you got injured and everything."

"I…" Harry started, Hermione cut him off firmly.

"You promised, you said leave me for a couple of days to recover, then you can come down and visit me"

"I said that?" Harry asked mock-skeptically.

"Yes." She said walking over to his cupboards withdrawing a teapot and two mugs. She and him practically never had tea cups, well _Harry_ never drank from teacups. She'd just ended up following his example after his teasing about her about wanting to be 'dainty', she'd punched him for that one.

"I can't tell you everything." Harry started.

"Confidentiality, I know the drill Harry." Said Hermione slightly impatiently.

"Very well. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin." He told her a very condensed version of events, missing out almost completely on the torture, subsequent death of said insane. He was relatively sure Hermione would understand, but he knew that her killing of the Death Eaters in Hogwarts had affected her a lot.

He didn't want to burden her with the idea of death of insane man. Or more to the point that he had been directly involved in his torture and eventual death.

Hermione leaned back, fingers wrapped around the mug of tea, she was happy that she had a mug, rather than a cup of tea, it felt so much more comforting to warm her hands on the mug of tea than a cup of tea.

"The article is full of Skeeter's usual vitriol."

"That's a given, probably Ginny's as well."

"Saying her name again?" She asked, a teasing tone in her voice.

"No point in being pissed off with a name. I'm sure there are some not totally barking mad people out in the world called Ginny."

"Very likely. It's basically her having a good rant about you and the 'muggle woman'." Hermione raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'm sure Judith would find the title amusing."

Hermione made a 'hmm' noise and continued. "Then Ginny rants a bit more about how she _tried_ to help you, that you refused to be helped, that you've got a disease that's befalling _many_ in the wizarding world…" She trailed off to take a sip of her tea.

"Yeah, that I'm a deviant, a mad man, that aliens are all the invention of the much more powerful wizards. That there couldn't possibly be anyone more powerful than the might wizard empire!"

"Harry."

"Too much?" He asked smiling.

"Only if you're aiming to be serious."

"Well that's alright then, you can't be serious all the time. Anything else I should know about Miss Weasley's ramblings?" He asked as he poured another mug of tea out of the tea pot.

"The article did at least, well it looks like it went through _some_ editing. There's an editor's note at the end of the article, hang on" She grabbed the newspaper and opened it up "'_a statement was sought from dragon preserves missing dragons. The Romanian Dragon Preserve and the Cymru Centre for the Preservation of Native Dragons they denied the claims in this report. They are currently evaluating their security procedures following the unknown attacks.'" _She said reading aloud.

"You mean the _Prophet_ is finally getting serious?"

Hermione snorted. "I doubt it. But they're probably trying to be a little bit more professional. Or they're worried about calling the dragon sanctuary's security into question."

"So it's okay to call the saviour of the wizarding world a mad deviant that needs to have an 'intervention' performed on him. But not to say the dragon sanctuary was broken into?"

"I thought you didn't like the title 'saviour of the wizarding world'?" Hermione asked semi-seriously.

Harry shrugged. "Not sure. I've been trying to decide whether it's going to be enough to carry me through the storm."

"I somehow don't think so."

"Great big ball of optimism you are Hermione." He muttered.

"Well look on past experience how quickly opinion turned. Don't worry, I'm sure favour will swing back in your favour and you'll be idolized soon enough."

"Where did you learn such biting sarcasm from?" Harry asked mildly.

"From hanging out with you so much."

"Ah." Harry smiled. "More tea?"

--//

It had been a fairly uneventful 2002 so far Harry reflected, Christmas and the New Year's celebrations of 2001 had been relatively uneventful and throughout this year had been quiet enough. Some clear ups here and there but nothing terribly huge.

He'd been able to take some time after his injury to continue his flight lessons and other study.

There'd been the occasional incursion that fell within the League of Paranormal Investigations, but nothing gigantic.

He even hadn't heard much of Ginny, she'd seemingly stopped spying on him and everything.

Of course the wizarding world didn't forget about things it liked to hate easily, as he'd found out a few times he'd ventured into Diagon Alley. Just the side along glances, it almost reminded him of Hogwarts when he was the one making up the return of Voldemort…what fun Hogwarts was…

Now of course things were coming to a crescendo, and not even in Britain.

Hermione leaned across her desk, fumbling around under the research notes for her annoyingly ringing mobile phone, not bothering to look at the display.

"Hello?"

"_Hey Hermione."_

"Harry?" She asked surprised.

"_Hey Hermione, is it alright if I come up?"_

"Where are you?" She asked skeptically. Harry's idea of 'come up' could mean anything from 'can I drive up', 'can I apparate in' or on one occasion 'do you think the university would mind if I parachuted onto the green?' At least Ron has learnt form Harry's example to _call_ first, or at the very least knock on the door rather than apparating in suddenly. If he did that one more time and disrupted her perfectly organised notes she'd threatened to do something both painful and surprising.

Just that threat had scared her boyfriend enough to modify his behaviour. She was a little worried that if he did do it again she'd actually have to dream up something painful and surprising.

"Outside. I've got an offer for you."

She toyed with the idea of telling him to spack off. But something in Harry's voice sounded both excited and agitated. "Fine, come up."

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door, which meant Harry had run to her room, rather than apparate, and it meant he'd genuinely been outside, probably in the car park.

"Hey Hermione." He said as she opened the door.

"What is it Harry?"

"I've got an offer for you."

"An offer?" She looked at him skeptically. He was smiling. That had to be a bad sign.

"A trip of a lifetime." He said still smiling. She waved him over to her electric kettle.

"Explain."

"San Francisco is hardly a trip of a lifetime."

"It's on Concorde." He said in defence.

Hermione crossed her arms and looked at him. "What about Judith and your friend Ioan? Isn't this the point of having members of your organisation? Of which I might remind you I am not a member."

Harry's expression dropped, almost comically making Hermione wince. "Harry." She said shaking her head in annoyance.

"Fine. There's another reason I'm asking you."

"Another reason, aside from the one you won't tell me about."

"I'm getting to that." He replied calmly. "According to my contacts."

Hermione interrupted him. "You have contacts?" Harry looked up at her. "Sorry Harry, honestly if you're going to be indirect about everything you'll have to expect that I'll ask questions."

"I've been making contacts around, both with the help of my associates and on my own to keep an eye out for certain things. According to a contact in San Francisco the Doctor is there."

Hermione looked over to him from where she was making them both tea. "The Doctor?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, and since you're the only person who's met him and knows somewhat of how things react around him, I thought you might be helpful on…for why I have to go to the USA."

Hermione carried over the mugs of tea putting them down a little hard on her small table and looked at Harry. "Explain."

Harry smiled and withdrew a folded letter from within his jacket. "Sign this."

"What is it?"

"You're not a member of LPI, but if you sign this it says I'm bringing you on as a freelance consultant, for this particular" He paused and grinned at Hermione. "Adventure." Hermione stared back at him. "Fine, this particular problem."

Hermione snatched the letter out of his hand and read over it, Harry leaned back into the chair.

A few minutes later Hermione placed the letter back on the table. "That isn't much of a letter Harry, it's neither binding, nor exclusive, in fact it mostly states how much you're going to pay me for my…troubles." She paused.

"And that you won't go blabbing to anyone."

"As if I would." Hermione snorted.

"Well? You are at the end of your classes aren't you? And it's the Doctor, who else would I take with me, really?"

Hermione studied her friend for a moment. "This is something to do with the Ministry isn't it?"

Harry raised an eyebrow at her. "The point of letters like that is you sign it before I start telling you state secrets."

Hermione reached forward and signed the piece of paper.

"Thanks. You know it's just a formality. So I can wave it at the Minister if he gives me any problems."

"Talking to me now are you Harry?"

"Please Hermione." Harry said impatiently. "Time is somewhat of the essence."

"I'm listening."

"Strange things have been happening in San Francisco." Harry extracted printout from his pocket and passing it to Hermione. It was a from the _Interesting Times _about a variety of creatures seen in Golden Gate Park, unicorns, griffins, chimera dragons, and other 'crytpozoological creatures'.

"Are you serious Harry 'crytpozoological creatures'?" She asked with a smile looking over at him, he wasn't smiling.

He nodded solemnly. "Golden Gate Park is becoming something of a hideout for these creatures. _None_ of them conform to what is in the Wizarding guidebooks."

"Oh."

"_Obviously_ the Ministry couldn't stand that and sent their own investigation team. The Minister wouldn't tell me if he sent them directly or if it was some department within the Ministry. But they saw it as a possible threat."

"What about the American" Hermione stopped mid-sentence thinking. "Whatever governance the United States has for wizards."

Harry shrugged. "Not sure. But from what I gather this team that was sent probably wasn't sent with the blessings or approval of the American wizarding authorities."

"Oh dear. I assume there's a reason they haven't come back?" She said looking down at the newspaper cutting.

"What ever is happening over there is blanketing out the whole area. There's some sort of field which is inhibiting portkeys, apparition and several other forms of magical transportation. They could go to the American wizarding authorities, but that would mean they snuck into the country before all this rushed to a crescendo."

"Which would some sort of diplomatic issue." Hermione chuckled. "It's good to know the Ministry is just as capable of spying and subterfuge as other governments around the world. It's comforting somewhat." She reflected to herself.

Harry smiled. "How understanding of you Hermione." He deadpanned. "The Ministry has given me resources to go over and then send them back, via muggle transport. There'll be no magical record of them having been there."

"Diplomacy stays intact and we all live happily ever after." Hermione paused. "How dangerous is it over there?"

"Less dangerous than our last year or two at Hogwarts." He replied.

"Very comforting."

"But not by much. It'll probably be dangerous. But it's also exciting and we're uniquely placed, knowing one of the more random elements there."

"I hope you mean the Doctor and not the Ministry officials Harry." She asked.

"Or the unicorns, which aren't what they appear either." He added.

"Fine Harry. Give me half an hour." She said after a moment.

--//

Hermione stretched and looked around her as they walked out of the terminal building. Harry was next to her smiling, she could tell he was smiling, even without looking at him.

She could tell that with Ron also, though through slightly different means.

"What's in the black mysterious weatherproof box?"

"Care package." He said but didn't explain further.

"Don't we need to stop and hire a car or something Harry?" She asked, she doubted Harry would be catching taxis anywhere. Considering his love of flying his broom he'd become very…enamored with the use of a car.

He turned to her but they didn't stop walking. "Already got the car and the keys." He said, showing her the keys in his hand.

Hermione paused and watched as Harry continued walking, they hadn't separated since they'd left the aircraft, yet he'd somehow got keys for a car.

"Isn't the hire area that way?" She asked as she caught up to him.

"We're parked away from everyone else." He said as they continued walking.

"How did you have the keys _before _we arrived here Harry?"

"Ordered it before I came to see you. Special delivery to me." He stopped, Hermione tripped slightly and looked around. "Isn't she a beauty?"

Hermione looked around and wondered if Harry was marveling at the aircraft again, honestly he has some odd tastes, maybe that was why she liked him so much.

"What?" She looked around Harry to the car Harry was looking at. It wasn't a new car, which was a little odd.

"What is it?"

"This Hermione is a 1967 Chevrolet Camaro."

Hermione studied it for a brief moment, it was black with a white strip across the bonnet.

"Hardly sedate Harry." She commented. "I thought you liked sports cars."

"Hermione, this is" He just shook his head and walked around to the back opening the boot. "This isn't just a sports car, it's a classic."

Hermione watched Harry as he took her bag before opening the door for her and then walking around and getting into the driver's seat himself. He looked, he looked like Ron the last time he was showing her a new broom he'd bought.

That made her smile. It could hold both of them, if they were careful what they did on it.

"Ready to go?" Harry was grinning at her.

Hermione sighed, but there was also a sense of excitement both in Harry's voice and that she was feeling. She didn't say anything but met his grin and nodded as he started the engine.

The engine wasn't all that subtle either.

--//

Fitz looked up as the car pulled into a parking spot near his hotel and exhaled a lungful of cigarette smoke.

He'd been trying to quit, that's what he'd been telling himself, that's what he told the Doctor whenever he gave him one of his 'slightly disapproving glances' on the _rare_ occasion he lit up inside the Doctor's Volkswagen Beetle.

This guy knew how to travel in America, it was a classic car. It actually looked a bit _retro_ as the people around here would probably say. Classic future, his time, maybe a little past his era, but close enough.

The bird he was with was a bit of alright too.

--//

Hermione wrinkled her nose as they walked into the hotel past a man smoking near the front.

She couldn't understand why people did that to themselves, especially considering all the information available concerning the dangers and health risks.

"Why here Harry?"

"All will become apparent."

"Are the _ministry_ people here?" She muttered as he checked them both in. Separate but linked rooms she noted.

She looked out the window at the cable car turntable, then knocked on the door into Harry's room before walking in.

He was on a mobile phone and was jotting down something into a notebook.

"Yep, right. Fitzwilliam Fort, sounds a bit dodgy, right, sure. Okay." He paused and looked over at her. "Alone? Can't I…no, yes I understand the terms of our arrangement. Yes. Okay."

"Going somewhere?" She asked innocently as he ended the phone call. At least he had the decency to look guilty.

"Yes. Just some preliminary research about the Doctor, his companions and the nature of the scene at the moment. Seems this Fitz guy is already looking around, might know something. Have to meet a contact." He leaned over a grabbed what looked like an envelope of photos from his backpack and flipped through them, Hermione craned over.

"Here. Look for yourself." He passed her the photos. They were of odd little white silver things, followed by some older photos of some things in metal silver suits, the people around them looked like they were from the 60s.

"Should I ask?"

"Genuine UNIT certified prints from photos taken during the Cyberman invasion in the involving International Electromatics and some other photos." Harry replied, but it didn't seem to mean much to Hermione

"Alien fetishist?" Hermione tried as she looked at the tight fitting suits.

"Perhaps. My contact like to be in the know of certain things."

"How did you get to know this one Harry?"

Harry looked a little sheepish. "He's a friend of Judith's." He didn't add that he'd tried to assassinate her, but supposedly they'd worked out their differences, at least that was what _she_ told him when she'd put them in contact with one another.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Hang out in the bar." Harry said as he stood up.

"Looking dainty?" She asked sarcastically.

Harry turned around to face her. "Gathering information. Hermione my contact is a little…well he's touchy." He didn't add what else he was.

"So you're keeping me out of the way, Harry if I knew you were going to do this I would have stayed at home."

"I also want you as my backup. This is the address." He ripped a page out of his notebook and pressed it into her hand.

"Fine. Backup it is, do you want a rescue that's gun's blazing or soft and subtle?"

"Surprise me." He said with a grin.

--//

_Rum and Coke, Shirley Temple, Blackberry Merlot, Grapefruit juice, Sidecar, Lemon Lime and bitters, Dandelion wine, Vesper martini, Mojito, Black Cat._

Hermione put down the menu is something of a daze, it had to be one of the most haphazard drinks menus that she'd ever read.

She was contemplating working her way through each of the menu items when the man who was smoking at the front of the hotel room sat down opposite her.

"Hello there." He said tipping his fedora at her.

"Hello." She said cautiously. Surreptitiously making sure she still had her wand with her. Despite what Harry had said about magical transportation his best answer for using spells was 'not sure'.

"Can I buy you a drink?" He asked and winked at her.

She resisted the urge to say something unfriendly and with a mental sigh decided she had to start investigating somewhere.

"Alright." She took another glance at the menu and back to the guy. "Lemon Lime and Bitters." Bitters generally had a very minor alcoholic content, but it should give her the impression of being easy to talk to if she had a drink even with a negligible amount of alcohol in it.

"Be back in a second." He said with another wink.

Hermione could hear him order the drinks his was 'Martini, shaken not stirred'. She resisted to shake her head and instead smiled when he returned with the drinks.

"I don't even know your name." He said passing her drink to her.

"Hermione." She said, making the appearance of taking a drink, but just wetting her lips and tried to smile daintily at him.

"Fitzwilliam Fort." He said, it sounded like a practised name. Hermione smiled upon hearing the name, perhaps she would learn more than Harry would wherever he was off at.

--//

Harry stepped back into the hotel, carefully looking around the foyer and walked into the bar area.

Hermione was sitting alone cradling something in a martini glass.

He caught her eye, she grinned dazed at the martini glass for a moment and made a show of standing unsteadily and walked over to him, taking his arm and leading him towards the stairs.

"Hermione are you pissed?" He asked amused.

"Shut up." She hissed quietly. "Lets get up to our rooms."

"How would Ron feel about this?" Harry asked quietly.

He didn't catch what she said but his shins felt it when she kicked him.

Once they were back in their rooms she straightened up and seemed to have no ill effects.

"You took your time." She said going over to the window to look out of it.

"Have a good time in the bar?" He asked smiling.

Hermione turned around to look at him. "Harry do you really think I would spend my time getting drunk?"

"No. So…?"

"So how did you go with your contact?" She asked leaning against the window sill. Harry watched her and the shadow she was casting as the sun shone through the window.

"I got some information, some leads to follow up."

"And Fitzwilliam Fort?" Hermione said with a smile.

Harry looked at her for a moment.

"You've met him?" He asked slightly surprised.

"Shared a lot of drinks with him." She sighed. "His language construction is all over the place Harry. I could write a thesis just on the way that he constructs sentences, his inflection, his fields of reference everything is so….so weird it was…" She trailed off.

"Interesting, you know then he's a time traveller with the Doctor."

Hermione gave him a look that said 'of course I do Harry'. "It didn't take him long to spill that, he seemed to think ordering martinis would mark him out as someone I'd want to sleep with. Or at the very least gave him something of an edge, the bartender just seemed to glaze over whenever he ordered drinks." She paused. "He's not here, the Doctor I mean."

"Yes, wouldn't happen to know where he's gone?"

"No. But according to Fitz, you know Fort isn't his last name?" She said distractedly.

"Yes. It's Kreiner."

"Very good Harry."

"You don't hand over…what I handed over without getting good information."

"More than photos I assume, I also guess I shouldn't ask." She fixed him with a stare. Harry nodded slowly.

"Fine Harry. As long as I don't get shot at this time."

"No guarantees. Supposedly a guy was mauled to death by a dragon last night." He said optimistically.

"Marvellous. So shouldn't we get going and find these wizards before they get mauled?"

Harry was shaking his head. "I think we should go out for dinner?"

"Dinner?" She repeated.

--//

It had been a nice meal, albeit from a corner table with a nice view of all the exits.

"Why Harry did we rush over here if we're going to sit around in bars and have dinner casually like this?" Hermione asked impatiently as they exited the restaurant, they had played their conversation _very_ casual while they'd been there.

"To gage the ley of the land, _literally_ in some cases I've been told."

"What?" She said after a moment.

"Did I mention this might be dangerous Hermione?"

"Your agreement did Harry." She deadpanned. "I know things like this are dangerous."

"That's why we're gauging the ley of the land. We don't want what happened to the Ministry to happen to us." Hermione looked at him as his features darkened for a moment as he looked at and past her. Then the moment was gone as a cool wind blew around them.

Hermione shook her head for a moment and watched Harry rub the back of his neck in thought.

"Tomorrow the real work begins, tonight was about looking around and making sure no one is trying to kill us."

"Not on our first night." Hermione scoffed with a smile.

"No." Harry chuckled. "That would be rather indecent of everyone."

--//

Morning, Hermione reflected was a nice time no matter where you were. She looked out the window and saw a flock of grey odd looking birds fly past her window.

She and Ron would sometimes wake before the sun rose, just to watch it rise. Actually that had happened once, after a night of drinking at some wizard pub that they'd visited. But the memory of being with was still there in her mind.

Even if he was a git a lot of the time. He was _her_ git.

Viktor could also be a bit of a git, more of a gruff, personable, deep, intellectual, thoughtful…she shook her head as she thought back to the time she'd spent over there. Watching the sun rise up, seeing the frost glisten in the early morning sunshine.

Her reminiscing was cut short as Harry knocked on the interconnected door.

"Ready?" He asked, not stepping into the room.

"I'm changed if that's what you mean Harry."

"Well…" He trailed off.

"And ready to go." She finished.

--//

As Hermione got out of the car, and nearly stood on a toad, the reality, or unreality of things was starting to sink in.

The fact that the toad had said "Watch it!" before hopping away was probably the trigger.

"You saw that didn't you Harry?"

"Heard, not saw. Was it important?" He asked locking the Camaro, slinging a bag onto his back.

Hermione thought about the question seriously for a moment. "Probably not."

The entrance of Golden Gate Park was somewhat ominous, Hermione thought to herself.

What did it partly was despite the rather sunny day that had captured most of San Francisco, at the moment over the area of Golden Gate Park it was deeply overcast.

"Ominous, dark and a feeling of danger." She said to herself.

"Welcome to the wonderful world of the League of Paranormal Investigations."

"I'm freelancing Harry, for you, for a favour." She added looked forward into the park, then she turned around and looked across the streets, everyone seemed to just be ignoring the weird things that were going on. Though no one seemed to be heading into the park. Just to punctuate this a roar ripped out through the early morning commuters.

Hermione started to think about what it sounded like, but found that she couldn't associate it with anything remotely similar in her experience.

The thing that it sounded primeval like when Harry fought the dragon during the triwizard tournament, but older, crueler, more fanatic.

"You alright Hermione?" Harry's voice broke into her thoughts.

"I think so." Hermione looked up at the moody looking sky for a moment and back to Harry.

"Probably the best considering the experiences, shall we take a walk into one of the most 'charged' places in San Francisco?"

"'Charged'?" She asked skeptically.

Harry grimaced slightly. "Not my words. Wands out I think."

"In daylight Harry with…" He stared at her and raised an eyebrow. "Oh fine. Do we even know where to start? I noticed the Ministry's information was almost obtuse in its vagueness."

"No. My contact couldn't really be precise either, but here is a good place to start, we're not likely to be attacked by any griffen. Not immediately anyways."

"Marvellous." There was a noise that sounded like thunder, but it was a continuous noise, then it abruptly stopped. "Bloody marvellous." She repeated to herself.

After a few hours of wandering around they found something, typically it wasn't the pleasant sort of something.

"Oh…Merlin, what is that?" Hermione said putting a sleeve up to her nose and mouth as she gagged.

It was in the shape of a foot print, a bloody mass.

"Oh dear." Was all Harry said as he started to gesture with a torch at the mass. "Oh no…"

"How can you do that Harry?" Hermione asked as she took ragged breath and saw several bits of clothing, bone and tissue floating off the ground, Harry had replaced his wand in a pocket and was pushing through the remains with a stick.

"I need to be thorough because…" He trailed off. "I think we'll need to keep an extra look out, around us and above."

"Oh what is it?" Hermione lost her patience and walked around Harry, who had been trying to frame himself so she couldn't see, or maybe she was just staying still so she didn't have to see what he was doing to the…to the corpse.

"That's disgusting, that's…oh." She stopped as she saw what Harry was focusing on with the torch light. It was actually two things, shattered though still relatively recognisable, both things they'd seen and used. A wand and a sneakascope.

"Oh Merlin Harry that's…" She trailed off.

"Yes, I'm rather afraid it is." He handed her the torch and pulled his backpack half off his back to rummage around in it. Removing a digital camera and started to take photos.

"What are you doing Harry?" She hissed.

"Evidence. I ensured the Minister I'd find his missing wizards." He replied as he zoomed in on the wand and sneakascope. "Hopefully the Ministry will be able to identify the wand from these. They can then arrange whatever they need to." He replaced the camera in his bag and withdrew a second device and looked at it, before writing something in a notebook.

"Coordinates?" Hermione asked as she tried to avoid looking at the _human_ remains.

Harry nodded. "Yes." He took the torch she was holding and turned away from the remains. "Hopefully we're close to where they pitched up." He shook his head. "I wish they gave off a measurable energy signature, at least then we could find them."

Hermione frowned for a moment in thought. "You have something that can detect energy signatures?"

"I run an organisation that investigates paranormal activity Hermione, you should see what's in my barns on my property."

"Sports cars I always assumed."

"That and a barely running Land Rover Defender. Almost new too…if it wasn't for the spell damage."

"You've mentioned it Harry." Hermione resisted the urge to stuff her hands in her pockets, it wasn't cold per se, but it was just the darkness imposed by the overcast day. Instead she just turned her back on the remains to look around them.

"Can't you…I don't know calibrate it to detect magical signatures?" Harry shook his head, "magic isn't, well it doesn't come up like that. Plus look where we are Hermione."

"Fine I get your point." She paced a short distance around them pointing the torch to penetrate the seemingly encroaching darkness, despite it being barely midday. She looked back to Harry. He'd got out another torch, most likely from his amazingly big bag, that wasn't big.

"They must be camped somewhere around here mustn't they?" She said to herself.

"Yeah, that was my assumption, camping in the thick of it, away from muggles."

"So he" She gestured in vague area of the body "Was on his way somewhere, maybe for water."

"Water?" Harry asked puzzled.

"Don't you remember Harry? When we went to the Quidditch World Cup we had to fetch water to use."

"I was a little busy, but yes, I remember."

"So don't you see." Hermione said with a smile. Harry blinked and then met her smile.

"They'd need to be camped near water, or within walking distance, so if we can find a water source around here we can work outwards from there."

"Precisely Harry."

"Have I told you you're brilliant Hermione?"

"Not nearly enough Harry." She smiled sweetly at him.

"You're brilliant Hermione."

"Keep saying it Harry, it does my ego some good to hear the great Harry Potter, saviour of all that's great and good" She was cut off.

"Of fluffy bunnies, cute kittens and things that go roar in the night." He commented idly.

"To praise the humble talents of one such as myself."

"You're just too depreciative of your talents Hermione." Harry grinned.

"I know Harry…I'm glad I've got you around to take some of the burden from me." She teased.

Just as they seemed to be making progress along a path that seemed to have had some traffic in the last few days they were attacked.

Harry whipped his wand around at Hermione's shout something tall and wraith like had grabbed Hermione.

"Stupefy." He said levelly and he realised just after he had said the spell that something was quite wrong.

As the spell launched itself out of his wand as a crackling, energy filled spell he felt something he never thought he'd feel from his wand; recoil.

The spell did its job at freeing Hermione who was pulling herself up leveling her wand around her.

"Harry…what?"

"Brace yourself when you cast." He shouted as more of the wraith, succubi like creatures swarmed in.

"Ow!" Hermione said and then swore as she too fired off a spell.

Following a minute or two of spell fire they were left alone with the smell of ozone in the air and sore shoulders.

"What in Merlin's name was that?" Hermione asked massaging her shoulder as she picked up her torch.

"The weird things that attacked us or what happened with the spells." He asked as he shone the torch around them, there were no bodies and no sign of anything that attacked them.

"Both, preferably. I suppose you've got a theory?"

"You haven't?" He asked curiously.

"Some sort of over-power…something." Hermione tried.

Harry nodded and affirmative. "I guess that is the result of a charged environment. Your shoulder okay?"

"Not dislocated or anything Harry." She said wincing.

"I think bracing ourselves and being prepared will have to do. Though I never thought I'd need to do that for casting a wand." Harry said as he rubbed his shoulder ruefully.

"Only guns you mean?" She asked levelly.

"Yes." He said simply. "Now that we've been attacked do you think we're going in the right direction?"

"Who knows. I take it as part and parcel hanging out with you Harry Potter."

"And you still love me for it don't you Hermione Granger?" Harry smiled at her, she just shook her head.

"Lets keep going, I don't want another attempt on my life, not in the next 5 minutes at least."

"I'll try Hermione." He said as he pushed past another overgrown tree. "This certainly wasn't in the guidebooks." He muttered mostly to himself.

"If there'd been a guide book to the wizarding world I think our lives would have been a lot easier." Hermione said from behind him as she cast her torch around them searching for a clues, or other things to attack them.

"Really, do you think someone published 'the idiot's guide to your own personal psychopathic enemy'?" Harry joked.

"Not specifically, maybe you could detail your life in a series of handy books." Hermione suggested jokingly.

"The last thing I want is someone reading about the adventures of Harry Potter and his wild adventures at Hogwarts."

"Yes. Publicity isn't your thing is it." She commented, her tone slightly mocking.

"It's bad enough having a band named after me, though Malfoy's in the same boat." He added vaguely, stopping, looking up at the canopy of leaves.

"What?" Hermione asked. She looked at Harry who was sniffing the air. "What is it?"

"Can you smell something?"

"Other than undergrowth, a fading adrenaline rush and someone who didn't put on enough deodorant this morning?"

Harry didn't seem to be listening though. He was sniffing the air.

"You remember, Mundungus used to smoke that ratshit smelling pipe?" He said as he finished sniffing the air.

"Yes." She said slowly. "You can smell that?" She added curiously as she inhaled deeply.

"Maybe." He said thinking as he rubbed the back of his neck and looked around. "That way I think." He said pointing at a piece of shrubbery.

It was somewhat of an anti-climax when they found it, the tent was sitting in a small clearing, the flaps of tent open, but they couldn't see into it.

Hermione started to walk forward, but Harry put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head.

"Hello?"

"Go away! You don't exist." Came a slightly slurred voice and of course some spells fired out of the tent. They crackled and hissed through the air, but failed completely to hit either of them.

"I'm from the Ministry." Harry called again edging closer towards the tent.

"Wh…?" Harry smelt another whiff of the smoke come out of the tent. He looked across to see that Hermione had gone around the back of the tent to the other side and was mimicking his approach.

"It's Harry Potter."

"The mad one." The voice scoffed. "You don't exist either." The voice sounded tired.

Harry motioned to Hermione with an open palm and mouthed 'Five seconds'. She nodded back to him.

"I'm here to help, help you get back to England."

"No escape from here. We've been abandoned."

Harry looked over to Hermione and nodded and they both burst through the tent Hermione's wand raised, she barely had time to register that Harry had already started a stunner.

"-fy." The chair the man was slouching in shattered as the spell hit him and forced him to the ground.

"Harry!"

"Oops." He said with a grin as he pocketed his wand.

"I thought we were going for a calm and simple approach."

"What gave you that idea?" He asked as he grabbed the pipe out of the man's hands.

"Your calm conversation?" She tried.

"Best to neutralise the danger."

"Shoot first interrogate the remains later." Hermione commented as she looked around.

Harry opened his mouth but shut it again, instead bending over and opened one of the man's eyes, it was bloodshot.

"High do you think?"

"Or lack of sleep." Hermione called over from the kitchen area of the larger within than without tent, she was waving some of the small cups under her nose.

"There's; Pepper up, calming draught, draught of peace, boil-cure potion and urgh."

"What?"

"Smells like something's gone off in a polyjuice potion." She put the cup down wrinkling her nose. "So now what?"

"Explain to him what's happening and get on with this I think." He said leveling his wand at the unconscious man.

--//

"This is important, don't whatever you do…" Harry paused and slapped the man (mildly) on the face. "Are you listening?"

"Yes Potter, I'm listening." He said looking up at the skies around the airport. "So fascinating these muggle 'aeroplanes'." He said, mostly to himself. Harry ignored the sigh from Hermione. He still looked like he'd been up most of the night, but didn't quite have the appearance of a man who was high.

"Whatever you do don't apparate from the plane."

"Why not? The sooner I'm away from these muggles and their" He looked at him. "Deviant madness the better."

"Aside from the complications it would cause the ministry, both here and in England. The velocities you will be travelling there will be a greater chance of a rather catastrophic splinching."

"Splinching? I never…" Harry cut him off.

"At the speeds you'll be flying there won't be much left except most likely a fine mist. Good for the plants, not so good for your health."

That suitably shocked him. Harry ignored again Hermione's tutting.

"I'll accompany you through security." Harry said taking a hold of the man's arm and led him away from Hermione.

--//

Someone had parked an old Volkswagen Beetle in the parking space he'd been using near their hotel so they'd needed to park a few blocks away.

"One down, three more to go."

"Are you counting the one who was…" Hermione trailed off.

"Two more to find." Harry corrected with a wince.

"Mysteriously taken." Hermione recounted. "Not much to go on Harry."

"No." He paused looking around. "Did you hear something?" Then there was a sound of an explosion.

"Yes." Hermione replied with a smile.

Harry sighed. Then two people rounded a corner and walking at a pace between them.

Notable were the large back packs they were wearing and of course that they had wands drawn and were firing backwards towards himself and Hermione.

It was only after they'd let off a few spells that Harry realised they _weren't_ shooting at them. He said as much to Hermione as they stood up.

"Makes a change." She said as two more spells roared between them.

"I felt that one." He looked up and down the street, which was quite empty, but those who were around didn't seem to be paying attention the spells that were flying up and down the street at them.

"You, please…" A man in official looking robes…and a large chest wound. "Please help they've stolen the treasures."

Harry considered saying several things. Like 'what treasure', 'who are you' , 'who were they' and several others.

But Hermione spoke first. "Of course. Come on Harry." She said taking off on at a brisk jog.

"I thought you were just saying before whenever we hang out."

"Shut up." Hermione said quickly.

He nodded and looked ahead as they ran, the pair were still jogging as fast as their booty could carry, they were also randomly firing spells off at a pretty wide pattern.

"Take the other side of the street, if we run we can catch them and deal with them." Harry said.

"And remember to brace. Good thing I wore my running shoes." She said as she increased her speed.

Harry started firing spells as soon as he was remotely in range.

The spell fizzed and crackled along the street making, the kickback making him cringe as his wand fought against his forward momentum of his running.

A spell cut across the street and he heard Hermione swear rather loudly in response and the rate of her spells increased dramatically.

As much as he would have liked to start firing off multiple Avada Kadavras at the assailants who were throwing all manner of spells at him he restrained himself to stunners.

Though they felt like they packed a punch.

They were getting close to the hotel now, and closing the distance to an ideal distance to fire and be shot at by spells.

Harry stared for a moment as he ran and then grinned, he knew the man who was standing beside the Volkswagen Beetle, seemingly enjoying the fresh air, oblivious to the spell firefight that was going on around him.

"Doctor! Get down!" He roared as he focused on the closest of the looters.

The spell ripped free of his wand, he could almost feel the energy roaring the short distance between him and his target, the way it fizzed and rippled through their air molecules and plunged into its target its momentum carrying him some distance before he slammed into the footpath.

A moment later a second body joined his fellow. He and Hermione ran up at practically the same time.

"Nice timing."

"You know Harry, I almost enjoyed that." She said after taking a breath and then glared at him grinning at her.

Then a slightly improbable thing happened, a dark blue truck pulled up with a similar hiss that the Knight Bus made, except this Harry thought to himself looked anything but friendly. More people like the official looking guy jumped out and grabbed the two stunned individuals.

"What about the guy who…"

"Thank you for your assistance." He waved from the back of the truck as the official people hauled the bodies into the back. Then without another word the truck sped off.

"Harry Potter, Harry, Harry, Harry. What a surprise it is to see you here!" Harry was enveloped in a hug. "And Hermione Granger!" The man exclaimed letting go of him. "Hermione, It's been so long, you've grown…or have I shrunk."

"Oof." Was all Hermione could say before she was enveloped in a similar hug as she'd seen the man give Harry. The man from what she could tell was wearing a velvet coat.

"Who…?" She started to say as the stranger let go of her grinning.

"Hermione this is the Doctor." Harry said with a matching grin.

"Doctor?" Hermione said her eyes widening. It was one thing for Harry to say that the Doctor changed his appearance, it was another to see the man in front of him, grinning and chatting away to Harry.

"Magic in the streets Harry? It's brilliant, amazing. If only Houdini could have seen this."

"That's not the only amazing thing, though from what your friend Fitz has been investigating that's not likely to be a surprise." Harry commented with a smile. As though to emphasise his point a flock of dodos waddled past them.

"You've met Fitz?" The Doctor said as he stared at the dodos walking down the street.

"After a fashion." Hermione commented. "Were those dodos?"

"Yes! Yes. Isn't it fantastic? And all here in San Francisco." Then suddenly the bouncy life filled person evaporated briefly and Hermione fancied she caught sight of the Doctor she had met previously. "It also represents a much greater problem."

"Shall we go inside have a drink? I don't want to run into any more dodos today." Hermione suggested.

"Of course, of course!" The Doctor suddenly brightened.

"A beetle Doctor, what about Bessie?" Harry teased as they walked up the stairs.

"Alistair has been looking after her for me after that business with the Ice Warriors."

Harry thought for a moment. "1996? Somehow I managed to miss an alien invasion?"

The Doctor nodded smiling. "Benny asked about you, the last time I met her anyway Hermione."

"Oh?" Hermione looked up.

"Oh." The Doctor said as they walked in and didn't find Fitz waiting for them.

"Probably off consulting his contacts." Harry murmured to them.

"So Harry, how are you here? What have you been up to?" The Doctor asked throwing himself into a chair in the corner of the bar.

"I'll get some drinks." Hermione offered.

"Ginger beer for me." The Doctor said absently as he patted his pockets for money. "Oh." He said staring at a crawling robot. "Very valuable piece of coin."

"Just not here." Harry said with a smile as he wondered to himself how much he could say. It was brilliant to see his old friend again. Seeing the Doctor just made him grin.

"Precisely Harry. Very perceptive!"

"Ace said you tried to pay with something like that before."

"Oh Ace…." He smiled.

"Is she well?" Harry asked curiously.

"Of course, of course, safe in the past." Then he mumbled "'Time's Vigilante'. So Harry, what brings you here and now?"

"Word reached me that you were here." Harry replied, trying to remember what the Doctor knew when he met him at the Quidditch World Cup and when he rescued him following his encounter with Voldemort in the graveyard.

Knowing a time traveller, especially one you shared a past with, which was also said time traveller's future was difficult. At least with Jack he could keep everything relatively worked out. Though Jack's past was also his past, he only knew of events that were Jack's future, everyone's future come to think of it.

Harry looked back at the Doctor who smiled a knowing smile as he tried to work out what to say.

"Things have been attracted to this area. I'm looking for some wizards who came here."

"You're working for that Ministry then? Ah…marvellous thank you Hermione!" He said brightening. Taking a long sip of the straw. Harry stared thoughtfully at his old friend, he certainly didn't look over 1000 years old.

"I finished school, obviously you know that." He said after a moment of contemplative silence.

"We finished school." Hermione put in.

"Good, good." The Doctor continued to grin. "And now you're here; attracted."

"Like flutterwings to dew." Harry said with a grin that was only matched by the Doctor's.

"So _what_ have you been up to?" The Doctor leaned towards him, eager, ready, enthusiastic.

"This and that, saving people, adventuring." Harry paused to take a sip of the mineral water Hermione had bought him. "I like to think you inspired me."

"Me?" The Doctor shook his head. "You inspire yourself Harry, I merely…make things better."

"Just as a Doctor should." Harry said with a grin.

"Ah Fitz there you are!" The Doctor leapt from his chair rocking the table and rushing over to the door to the bar.

"So that's the Doctor?" Hermione looked between Harry and the Doctor. Harry nodded. "He's…" She trailed off.

"Energetic?" Hermione nodded. "He can be many things." Harry replied somewhat wistfully.

"But he's _so_ different to…to the other one." Hermione frowned, even studying linguistics you didn't come across the language to deal with knowing a multi-faceted time traveller too often.

Harry grinned. "You have no idea." He said looking over to where the Doctor was talking, waving his arms around and making grand and worried gestures.

Then he walked back over, Fitz following him.

"You Potter?"

"Yes. And you'd be, Fitzwilliam Fort" Harry paused and raised his eyebrows at the Doctor "or is that Fitz Fortune, or perhaps Fitz Kreiner, you're some way from 1963."

"What…?" Fitz started and shook his head. "Got a message from a friend. He says talk to the unicorns."

Harry smiled. "Thanks Fitz." He rose and shook Fitz's hand. "It's Harry by the way. Potter is what my mortal enemies call me and professors called me." Harry looked up at the clock on the wall. "Best to see the unicorns at night I think. Time for a spot of dinner."

"Of course the only way to round off being attacked, shot at and running for our lives." Hermione commented idly as she sipped something alcohol based.

"You know the Doctor then?" Fitz asked regarding Hermione in a new light.

"In passing, but that's just what hanging out with Harry does."

"Doctor, dinner?" Harry asked. "My treat, considering I've wandered in one of your adventures."

"Rather than me appearing in yours Harry? I haven't been present for all of your schooling life." The Doctor said casually regarding him.

Harry raised an eyebrow at the Doctor's casual curiosity. "Wasn't it you who went on and on about the Web of Time?"

"Me?" He looked over to Fitz, he had a wounded puppy look in his eyes.

"Kyra said we can drop in whenever." Fitz mumbled.

"Good, good. Dinner it is then!" Harry rubbed his hands together.

Hermione regarded Fitz and he in turn didn't try to flirt with her, they both looked over to where Harry and the Doctor were chatting amiably, every so often the Doctor would make a grand gesture with his hands as he animatedly talked.

"So what was that yesterday, just looking for information?"

Hermione shrugged. "Harry had his contacts to see and I wanted to find out the ley of land."

Fitz snorted at what seemed like a private joke that he didn't elaborate.

"You two together?"

"Me and Harry?" Hermione asked incredulously picked through her salad. "Are you and the Doctor together?"

Fitz just shook his head.

"And now you're investigating paranormal activity, the wonder and brilliance of humans, Harry! It astounds me sometimes." The Doctor paused to take a bite out of whatever it was that he'd ordered, the Doctor had rattled off his order in perfect Italian, which had seemed to only bamboozle the waitress given that they were in a French restaurant and the waitress was at studying physics at the Advanced Research Project at Berkeley.

"Well were there's a gap, UNIT and Tor…" The Doctor fixed him with a curious stare as he paused and tried to remember if the Doctor _now_ knew about Torchwood.

"And other entities." Harry paused to finish his meal. "Knowing you is difficult Doctor."

"Oh? Knowing me is fun, brilliant, different. I'm a time traveller, the guy with two hearts."

"I also know the future." Harry broke in.

"The future?" The Doctor paused in the middle of his speech.

"Web of Time and all that. What happens if I tell you something you didn't know when you meet me next."

"Me meet you next? Shouldn't that be you meet me next?"

"No." Harry met gaze with the Doctor for a few moments. He seemed older for a few moments. Then he broke the stare.

"The thing about the Doctor is, he's got the ability to look you in the eye and lie like a dog. I've always admired that." Fitz said jabbing a finger backwards to where Harry and the Doctor were chatting as they walked along back to their hotel, where supposedly they'd each be going their separate ways.

Fitz wasn't so much of a misogynistic 60s throwback she'd initially guessed at, actually a rather fascinating person, who still threw on the flirting charm when he thought she was tipsy (she wasn't). Hermione knew how to hold her alcohol, living on campus taught you few things other than the essentials of study.

"He does like to know things, from what I've seen of him, hide them until the moment they're needed." Hermione started diplomatically. "But if he's a time traveller shouldn't he know what's going to happen."

"You'd think he would, sometimes he walks in not knowing anything. Other times he just gets us to do the dirty work, then there was what happened to…" He trailed off. He'd done that a few times Hermione noted, say 'us' rather them 'me', but he hadn't started to say who the other person was, _or_ what had happened to he or she. From the way Fitz had talked it sounded like a she, possibly.

"I've _always_ wanted to fly a dragon, can I come with you tonight?" The Doctor asked as he practically _bounced_ along.

He seemed so full of energy, far more than the last time he'd met _this_ Doctor, but Harry also knew that the Doctor was in the middle of something here in San Francisco, something that he was obviously trying to distract himself from by getting involved in Harry's…'adventure'. He chanced a look back at Hermione and Fitz. They seemed to be chatting alright, letting himself and that Doctor chat about all manner of things.

Though the Doctor was still challenging him on the future, or to be more accurate _his _past but the Doctor's future.

He should know better than to ask things like that, it was taking some degree of concentration to not reveal anything to the Doctor, or only pertinent things, maybe the Doctor forgot what he said between this body and his next. When he'd met the Doctor at the Quiditch World Cup he'd been somewhat reticent to talk about the events of his regeneration, even if he did later talk about the Time War, Last and Great that it was.

_How_ the Doctor knew it was something odd, considering according to the Doctor and Jack and Romana and the Magister there were plenty of time active species in the universe.

"I thought you said you'd be the 'upstanding Time Lord' and sit on the sidelines with popcorn?"

The Doctor stopped walking and stared at him, grasping his lapels, Harry smiled and wondered if the Doctor would appreciate it if he told him that he looked like one of his predecessors.

He decided not and just smiled to himself. "I might have embellished a little. Though you seem to be in the middle of your own crisis here." Harry motioned around.

"This, this, this wonderful glorious confluence of events and people?"

Harry made a noise of agreement.

The Doctor stuffed his hands into his pockets once again, Harry half expected him to pull them out again and offer him a jelly baby, but that was another Doctor some while ago.

"Maybe, but Harry, this, this is wondrous, even by" He grinned at him. "Our standards."

Harry met his grin. "Fine Doctor you can come." Harry looked over to their hotel where a woman with dark hair was smoking outside the hotel. She was looking in their direction. "But it seems you have some things to deal with here." He added.

The Doctor, who had been walking backwards watching, waiting for him to answer spun around quickly, his jacket seemingly not quite matching his velocity, or maybe it was just the weird way his shadow was falling on the ground during that in between dusk and night, maybe.

"What?" The Doctor said. "Oh Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam…." The Doctor said rushing off.

"Looks like that's our cue to depart." He tipped his hat to Hermione. "Nice chatting with you." He nodded to Harry. "Potter."

"Mr Kreiner. I hope to see you and the Doctor before we depart." Harry said as he looked towards the Doctor. "He looks like he's got his hands full."

Fitz's look indicated that despite chatting for most of the night the Doctor had neatly avoided why he was here and what was going on in relation to him.

"Yeah."

"Come on, we've got an appointment with some unicorns." Harry said taking Hermione's arm.

"Don't you want get the Doctor?" Hermione asked looking over at the Doctor, Fitz and the dark haired woman.

Harry shook his head. "Trouble follows the Doctor."

"Harry, trouble follows you, more often than not you're being shot, chased, tortured or insulted."

"Insults are fine, it's when they're _really_ camp about it. I hate being taunted by someone camp." Harry said leading her away from their hotel.

"How many camp megalomaniacs have you fought lately?" Hermione asked with a quirk of a smile.

"Not a lot." He admitted.

"So?" She tried again, nodding her head backward to the where the Doctor was.

Harry dug his hands into his pockets. "The Doctor's like a force of nature, sweeping in, like a winter chill freezing water mid-flow in a fountain or bushfire sweeping across the countryside. Powerful both in image and realisation." He paused, looking up and down the street as they crossed it.

"But?" Hermione asked, looking around, it was quite empty around here. No weird things occurring. That worried her somewhat.

"But I think he's trying to distract himself from larger issues, trying to juggle cats to distract himself from the dragon beating at the door."

"So? He seemed capable of plenty of machinations the last time we met him." She said as they reached the Camaro. _And plenty more_ she added mentally to herself according to Bernice Summerfield.

Harry sighed. "I get the feeling what's happening here is far beyond simple kitten juggling. We've still got a job to do, getting involved with the Doctor's _adventures_ might lead to unforeseen occurrences."

The Camaro roared with life puncturing the bubble of silence that enveloped him. But the conversational silence continued.

"He seems," he paused as he indicated and then turned the wheel. "when I last met him as he is now he was far more…bouncy, breathless." _Though, _Harry thought to himself _he was even less energetic when I met him at the Quiditch World Cup_. "He's the same person, though more, I don't know. It's hard to put into words."

Hermione nodded, looking out the window as they drove past the buildings that surrounded Golden Gate Park. "I understand Harry. You have after all known him a lot longer than I have. According the Bernice _he _liked to play people like pieces in a game."

Harry made an affirmative noise. "I'm just not sure what game we're playing at the moment."

"As long as we don't have to recreate a chess board and play a game out Harry. Once in my life was enough for me."

Harry looked at her quickly. "What and miss the chance to look gallant?"

"Ron likes to impress upon me the scars he got during that incident."

"Little bit of an over-share there Hermione." Harry idly commented.

Hermione grinned at him. "I think he's still trying to compete with you."

"For scars?" Harry queried incredulously. "Ron doesn't, couldn't understand how much pain and suffering I've been through to end up with them."

Hermione rested a hand on his shoulder. "Sorry, it was just meant to be…you know how he is."

He nodded and added. "The way he used to look at me when we were changing I occasionally teased him that he might want to…you know, get intimate."

Hermione whacked him on his shoulder with the back of her hand. "Harry!"

"That's what he said when I suggested it. Though far less mature, more of a squeak."

Then the darkness seemed to close in around them, Harry turned off the engine and they sat for a moment looking out into the park, the headlights of the car barely biting through the enveloping darkness. "Here we are."

"Another dangerous, dark place with Harry Potter adventure holidays." Hermione muttered to herself.

"Nothing like them, fun, adventure," Harry was cut off by Hermione.

"Being shot at, being questioned, quizzed and generally trying avoid a diplomatic incident."

"For a government that thinks I'm insane. Don't you love the life?" He grinned at her.

Hermione wouldn't admit it to Harry, not at the moment in any case. But _yes_, yes it was enjoyable, fun even, though perhaps some of that enjoyment came from knowing that at the end of this she could return to her relatively normal life.

Maybe Harry would want her for more 'freelance work', maybe she might agree…maybe.

"Ready?" Harry's voice broke into her thoughts, he had slung his backpack onto his back and was offering her a torch. Looking up into the inky black sky she smiled and tried to ignore the cool wind that whipped around them, then a moment later it was gone.

"Absolutely." She said with what she hoped sounded like confidence, but what came out as mild sarcasm. She blamed spending too much time with Harry for her sarcastic streak that had slowly made itself known.

"Harry how do you know that these unicorns will be able to help us? If they're unicorns, how are we going to talk to them?" Hermione asked as they pushed their way through another low growing tree. She'd read about the Golden Gate Park, though she'd never been, and it wasn't an overgrown jungle, not the last time she'd read up on the subject. How long would it remain like this, how long until things inevitably returned to normal? Or perhaps it wouldn't '_The 21__st__ century is when everything changes'_ Harry had quotes to her a while ago. Maybe this was just one of the many things that was changing.

"These aren't regular unicorns." Harry called back to her.

"Of course they aren't."

"They're supposedly from another dimension."

"Of course they are." Hermione said again and wondered if life would throw any other unexpected things in her direction.

"But they shouldn't be dangerous." Harry added vaguely as he looked up at the sky again, he had been doing that since they'd started into the park, though whenever she tried looking up all she saw was black.

Then she felt it, a sharp jab in the middle of her back, she stopped walking immediately. Less than a moment later Harry turned around.

"Worried?" He asked a smile on his face unaware of the whatever it was that was jabbing into her back.

"A little bit." She said nervously.

"Why?"

"There's something jabbing into my back." Hermione applauded herself for saying the sentence such a nonchalant manner.

Harry didn't say anything but did lean to his right to see what was behind her. Then he waved. "Hello there!"

Hermione's eyes widened as she saw more of the being behind Harry, they were tall as a horse, white, with a golden horn in their forehead and managed to look nothing like the unicorns in the wizarding world though looking exactly like ones that she could imagine existing.

"Harry!" She hissed gesturing with her head, not wanting to move too far from her captor.

"Oh goody." He said and turned around to look at Hermione, a manic grin forming. "I've always wanted to say this." He said as he continued to grin. "We come in peace. Take me to your leader."

He turned around as Hermione groaned.

"Hermione?" He asked curiously as he offered out his arm, cautiously she walked forward.

"Just don't go sleeping with any green skinned aliens." She muttered as she took his arm.

"No promises."

"Ah there you are Potter, I had wondered how long it would take you to rescue me!" Greeted the man who was sitting at what looked like a bar from a 1950s soap that had been plonked in the middle of the park. He looked to be playing a game of wizarding chess against one of the unicorns. Something about both...beings body language suggested that the unicorn was the leader, that and they had been lead to them.

"Professor Marksdown Eversdale Eftosian-Thelos."

"Ah so you've heard of me then old chap?" He asked taking a sip from a china cup.

"Only in passing. I've come to rescue you." Harry said amicably.

"Well, top show." He brightened toasting them with a tea cup..

Hermione couldn't help thinking it was going remarkably easily.

"And this is your mudblood you've brought with you to smooth things along with the rabble is it?"

Of course, Hermione thought to herself. "The mudblood has a name and can speak for herself thank you very much." She bristled.

"No offence meant, can't have you thinking I was one of Voldemort's lot." He smiled at Harry. Hermione chanced a look at Harry who was staring back at him with a cold expression.

"One of your colleagues has already died Professor. I could very easily kill you and say that you died along with them. It would be pathetically simple. So I would ask you to hold your tongue, lest I cut it out for you." He said with a professional level of coolness that gave Hermione gooseflesh that felt like to travelled all the way to the bone, and then some. Aside form the chills that his comment induced she couldn't discern what he was thinking, but there seemed to be something bubbling beyond what was immediately visible on the surface of Harry's features.

"Yes. I think you would." Professor Eftosian-Thelos said after a moment regarding Harry, he gave her a casual look of disdain, bordering on disgust.

"If I could have a word." Harry's tone changed as he addressed the lead unicorn.

"Stun him if you need to Hermione, kill him if it's necessary." He said with casual abandon.

"I understand you're stuck here." Harry said.

"Yes, you know of us?" Said the unicorn, it seemed like he/it/she, Harry wasn't sure what gender it was, but it seemed like it was speaking in English to him, though a part of him suggested to the conscious side of his mind that it may not be, whatever it was he tried not to think about it.

"Not really, in passing." Harry slipped off his bag and removed an unfeasibly large rolled map from it, unrolling it and pinning it between two convienient trees. "I'm relatively sure this situation will sort itself out." He said as casually as he could. At least the Doctor never mentioned San Francisco being the epicenter of anything weird, no weirder than usual, though that still wasn't really saying anything given the lives they both lived. "But if it doesn't there's a space time rift here." He pointed to Cardiff. "If you got here through some dimensional rift, I was thinking there could be a chance that you could use whatever it was that got you here to get back through the rift there."

"We were not aware of any rifts here."

Harry was silent for a moment. "Well, no. But I thought you had better know about it, just in case things don't resolve themselves."

"You believe they might?" Asked the unicorn.

Harry stood in silent contemplation for a moment, just so he didn't say immediately 'yes'. But the answer would be yes. The Doctor was on the case, so hopefully he would fix…all of this or at least smooth over the bumps, turn the mountains into molehills.

"I believe so."

"But you give us an alternative."

"Just in case, things don't always go to plan." He added. Harry looked at the unicorn who seemed to be in thought, the end of the conversation seemed to just end here, but he wasn't really sure how to fully end it. He decided just to back away until he was out of sight of the unicorn.

He returned to where Hermione was waiting, the other unicorns seemed to have disappeared.

"Harry the unicorns they…" But Harry cut him off.

"Later." He said in a low voice, looking around carefully and then up at the sky again, there still wasn't any sign of stars or anything remotely _normal_. Not that Hermione really expected there to be.

"Yes good show old boy, keeping the natives in check, can't let them discover anything too complex." Hermione jabbed her wand _hard_ into the man's side.

"Shut up, we're leaving." Harry said grabbing the man's shoulder and pushing them towards the direction they'd come from, after they were a few steps away from where the unicorns had been he asked the Professor a question. "What about your colleague, know where he's gone?"

"Smoking his brains to sludge, no sense of duty or honour." Professor Eftosian-Thelos called back to them with some disdain.

"I've found him, _he_ said you departed taking Junior Researcher Bartholomew Colmo with you."

"Yet you found me in this maelstrom of aberrant persons." Eftosian-Thelos said calmly was they walked into a small clearing.

"That's what the Ministry paying me for." Harry said looking around, something was beginning to feel _not_ _right._ Then he had a realisation what it was.

"What did you say?" Harry asked, though the Professor was mid-speech.

"Colmo was far too much of a conformist, his mind was addled. He needed to be dealt with. You though Potter will see proceedings for your actions." The he laughed as figures rushed out from the undergrowth, grabbing Hermione and forming a circle, their wands pointing at him.

Hermione swore. "Marvellous, thanks Harry."

"So which nutters are you part of Professor?" Harry asked casually as he looked around him. There were at least ten wizards or witches, their wands drawn pointing at him. It almost made him feel nostalgic for the days at Hogwarts and the people threatening him. People who were mad nutters at that.

Harry tuned back in to the mad Professor, he'd tuned out his ranting for a moment during his nostalgia trip. "…These _things_ just prove how warped and depraved your thoughts have become Potter. These are not _aliens_ merely derivations of the mighty wizard kind!"

"Oh you're one of those." Was all Harry had to say, he couldn't see through the gloom that was encroaching but he was sure Hermione was rolling her eyes, either that or she was silently cursing him, he hoped for the former.

"You will return to England and face retribution for your immorality!"

Harry slowly turned around looking at the encroaching group.

"Ah now, you see" He said as he looked around. "What you've done is you've started to corner me, in a circle, that's pretty brilliant. In the stupid sense I mean. Good thinking on the circle. But one problem."

"What's that?" Hermione deadpanned sarcastically.

"They forgot to take my wand. Though in this magically charged environment it makes using spells all the more complicated and dangerous wouldn't you say?" Harry said talking quickly as he withdrew his wand. "The one thing you don't want to do in such a highly charged magical environment is start letting off bright spells" Harry turned around making sure everyone was focusing on him. "Especially since you will have dark adapted with all your lurking about." Harry took a breath and hoped Hermione had got his hints, then he pointed his wand in the last direction the goons approaching him thought he would, the sky. "LUMOS!" Harry roared.

Light rushed up from his wand sizzling and hissing through the air, lighting up Golden Gate Park, it impacted something high in the air whiting out everything directly below it. Even as Harry let go of the spell the light, blaring and blinding it remained.

Harry grinned to himself as he dropped down onto his stomach and whispered a _Stupefy_ at one of the blinded wizards.

"_Avada Kedavra!"_ His target yelled across the circle, the spell shot across Harry's back, he fancied he could feel the sizzling green death of the spell as it spat across the circumference of the circle.

_They didn't need much encouragement_. Harry thought to himself as another equally deadly spell shot across him again as he shuffled around searching, squinting against the on-going white out from his spell.

Squinting he saw someone crawling towards him. He angled his wand backwards and fired another _Stupefy_ and was rewarded by far more cries of deadly and not so deadly spells.

"_Harry_!" Hissed someone who sounded remarkably like Hermione somewhere in front of him.

"Hey Hermione." He said as casually as possible, as though they weren't both flat on their stomachs and mad wizards shot randomly at each other.

Hermione didn't seem to have anything to say.

He fired another spell in a random direction.

"Must you add fuel to the fire Harry?" Hermione said in a weary manner.

"I couldn't have fought my way out, not in this environment with these zealots."

Harry gestured with his head as he tried to blink away the blinding spots in his eyes. Both the cries of spells from their attackers and the blinding spell light were dying down.

Then the light suddenly cut out and only the afterglow flare in their vision and the sound of some groans around them was left.

Harry looked over at Hermione, who looked back at him.

"I think we should get up off the ground." He said completely needlessly, then he added as they stood. "Sorry I keep getting you into danger Hermione."

Hermione shook her head. "I get myself into danger, hanging out with you." She smiled at him and took a deep breath of the night air as she blinked several times. "But thanks anyway. But as you said at the start of this 'adventure' this is a job and I chose to come and get mixed up in this crazy life."

"But still I worry should anything happen to you." Harry said as he looked around.

"I can look after myself Harry."

"I know." Harry said, then Hermione gasped.

"Are they all dead?" She asked looking around, having got her sight back.

"Caught in the crossfire, I'll check them. Cover me." Harry called to her as she scooped up her wand where she'd been forced to drop it.

More than half of their attackers were dead.

"Is he...?" Hermione trailed off looking at Professor Marksdown Eversdale Eftosian-Thelos.

"Dead as a can of spam." Harry said without much preamble and slight humour.

"Harry, please." Hermione said somewhat disgusted at his comment.

Harry bent down and retrieved Professor Eftosian-Thelos' wand, slipping it into one of his many pockets.

"What are you going to do?" Hermione asked quietly, trying not to look directly at the dead body of the man they'd come looking for, or at the men whom Harry had identified as deceased.

Harry slipped off his back pack and removed a dark black body sized shaped bag and proceeded to slip it over the Professor's body and then sealed it up. It didn't seem like a regular body bag, not that she'd seen many, mostly on crime dramas that were on late at night, she like to have the TV on sometimes while writing essays.

Harry finished what he was doing by pushing an odd looking stake into the ground and tying some loose ends of the body bag to it.

"This was something I got from the Ministry, just in case. Though they didn't like the idea of me needing it." He explained as he stood up and retrieved the same device he'd consulted at their previous encounter with the bodily remains and wrote a similar set of coordinates into his notebook.

"What about these people?" Hermione asked, gesturing those still alive.

"You okay with banishing them away, I just don't want them around here." He motioned the body bag.

Hermione looked around them and chewed her lip. Harry frowned. "How about you deal with the breathing ones, a slightly more delicate touch I trust."

"Than your bull in a china-shop approach you mean Harry?" She teased, despite the situation.

Hermione tried not to watch what Harry was doing to…to the people who started firing the _killing curse_ at them without much provocation. Instead she focused on controlling the crackling of her banishing charm so as to _not_ do her targets any further injury, beyond that which they'd done to one another.

"What about this Bartholomew Colmo?" Hermione asked as the carefully walked back to where they'd left the car.

Harry shrugged. "From what Professor Eftosian-Thelos said I don't hold out hope. But I'll inform the Ministry and they can take it from there." He said simply.

--//

Hermione walked down the stairs of their hotel, feeling well rested, the previous night's events a fresh yet distant memory.

Walking into the bar where a buffet breakfast was set up she could hear Harry and the Doctor talking or arguing in the corner. She noticed as she looked over the suspicious black case was by Harry's feet.

"Harry, Harry, Harry. _Why_ didn't you _wait_ for me? All of this could have been avoided." The Doctor enthused.

"All of what Doctor?" Harry asked stiring his tea and attempted to keep a calm expression on his face.

The Doctor though did not. "Fitz told me about the bodies Harry." He said his expression shifting somewhere between disappointment and anger.

"They were trying to kill me Doctor." Harry replied evenly.

"There should have been" The Doctor started

But Harry cut him off. "Another way?"

"No, another solution, there isn't just one or the other there are a multitude of directions your _confrontation_, whatever it was could have gone, if, if only you and I could have gone along together Harry!"

"You seem to have your hands full here Doctor, Fitz isn't the only one with contacts in the city."

The Doctor bristled slightly. "I don't know everything. I'm not sure I want to." The Doctor fixed him with a hard stare, Harry looked into his eyes and met the stare.

"You really are too good at that." The Doctor said with an air of resignation.

"He taught me plenty of things." Harry commented sadly thinking of the last time he'd met the Magister and the state that he'd been in.

"Why don't you want to know Harry? I thought you'd…unless you already know…?" The Doctor asked, picking up his previous statement as he buttered a piece of toast.

Harry shook his head. "I didn't know you were here in San Francisco, the web of time is safe as far as all that's concerned." Harry commented lightly as he watched the Doctor smear a large amount of raspberry jam onto his toast. "I don't want to know what's going on here with you because" Harry paused to sigh and the Doctor cause his look. "Because if I did I would want to stay here finish this, whatever you're up to."

He paused, though the Doctor stepped in. "Fighting side by side Harry?"

Harry nodded. "You might tempt me to come away with you, adventuring and all."

"But you know my future?" The Doctor tried.

"And I know your past, but more than that I know the person I want to be and what I want to do. I've had my" He stopped himself from saying 'trip in the TARDIS' that was still the Doctor's future, despite being his past. "You've given me your time and you've known when not to follow me and let me face my own dangers. I know what I'm doing, even if I make mistakes along the way."

The Doctor was grinning at him now. "That good Harry, wonderful." The Doctor beamed at him.

Hermione followed Harry and the Doctor outside to the Doctor's car where Harry lifted the black case he'd been carrying around onto the back of the car and undid the case.

"Something of a care package for you Doctor." Harry said by way of explanation.

"How did you know I…?" The Doctor trailed off as he looked within the case.

"An Acturan probe crashed into a wizarding village a few months ago, we salvaged this from what was left. There's an energy catalyser. Force field systems integrator and that's a"

The Doctor finished the sentence for him. "A Dalek energy pack."

"Less than fifth full from what we've been able to tell." Harry added.

"Thank you, thank you, Harry, these will be immensely useful." Harry was enveloped in another hug by the Doctor who was practically jumping up and down, then he started to shove the various components into his pockets. "Very, very useful." The Doctor repeated mostly to himself.

There was several moments of silence.

"You'll be leaving soon then?" The Doctor looked between them smiling.

Harry nodded.

"Well it's been lovely seeing and meeting you again Doctor." Hermione said stepping forward to the Doctor who beamed at her and wrapped her in another hug, she was prepared for it this time though and hugged him back.

"And you Hermione, and you, very, very good to meet you again, especially after so long."

"Hopefully we'll meet again at some point." Hermione said.

The Doctor looked to Harry who shook his head. "You're the one who went on and on about the Web of Time, time tracks and the Blinovitch Limitation whatever it was."

"Old Blinovitch, never appreciated in his time." The Doctor said whistfully to himself before wrapping Harry in a hug, lifting him off the ground.

"Harry Potter, it has been an lovely, amazing, wonderful to meet you again!"

"And many times more I hope Doctor." Harry patted the Doctor on the back as the Doctor dropped him back on his feet.

"Yes, yes, yes…now what am I forgetting." The Doctor looked up the sky. "Fitz and Sam…oh dear I was meant to meet them…" But he trailed off and grinned at them. "You sure Harry?" He gestured the Beetle.

"My car's nice and you have your own adventures to have, as do I."

"As you do." The Doctor nodded sagely, then added. "There's nothing wrong with this car." He patted it affectionately before getting in and starting the engine.

He gave them a final wave before pulling out into the not quite busy street.

"So that's it?" Hermione asked as they watched the Beetle get lost amongst the cars, horses and other weird things that were still on the streets.

"That's it."

"You _really_ don't know what happens?" Hermione looked at Harry.

He shook his head. "In the short run, no." Harry turned away from the traffic.

"Time to go?" Hermione asked as they turned back to their hotel.

"Unless there's something you want to see while we're here?" Harry asked.

She thought for a moment, but with all the weird things going on here she doubted she would be able to find or concentrate on the things she wanted to investigate.

"Not at the moment."

Harry nodded. "Well then pack your bags and we can head back to England, I'm sure we've both got work to do."

"What about the Ministry Harry?" Hermione asked as they climbed the stairs.

"The Ministry will get my report, both in person and a written one of everything that happened here." He paused to look out the window. It didn't have a nice view, given that it was an alley way with rubbish bins, or Harry supposed as he was in America _trash cans_ and other detritus. But it allowed him to think. "Everything that was relevant to what happened here."

Hermione followed his gaze out the window and saw some dodos nesting in a gutter below, just as a dragon flew overhead. She just shook her head and smiled to herself.

_Author Notes:_

_I know Concorde never flew into San Francisco International Airport, so I'm just saying in the Doctor Who/Harry Potter-verse they did run flights all the way across the US. I could have just said they took a regular flight from London, or switched planes when they landed in the US…but it's just one of those ideas that got stuck in my head and there's something a little bit special about the Concorde. _

_So either it takes off at San Francisco and then re-along the way it has a bigger fuel tank/is more efficient in the DW/HP universe._

_Some may recognise the drinks menu in this chapter, it's a selection of the drinks nominated a few chapters back for Hermione to drink._

_This has been the first time Hermione's been near a bar in order to sample said drinks. _

_A lot of the setting of this story comes from a novel called __Unnatural History__ that happens to be set in San Francisco. Much like 2000 and 2001 not a lot happens involving the Doctor on Earth during these years. The setting and Doctor I chose for this outing is the most accessible as it involves thematically similar stuff._

_The Doctor comes into this chapter quite late I realise, but this isn't about the Doctor turning up into Harry's 'story' it's about Harry dropping into a time and place where the Doctor is and getting involved in everything._

_I've been plotting out future chapters recently, and I've been thinking about Ginny. I know I've been saying that I was going to keep Harry and Ginny together. That was my intent, to be a challenge to myself, but this story has taken a different turn which I'm quite enjoying developing. So it is less likely that Harry and Ginny will end up together for the long haul. _

_I've also been trying to work out how to write some of the next chapter without using what is becoming a staple of mine the 'flashback' structure. I'm putting this in now as I may possibly use it, though only for the introduction into the body of next chapter, to preserve some of the element of surprise for what happens during the next chapter. (I'm still undecided, next chapter is largely unwritten aside from some planning)_

_Next chapter will also be kicking off a mini 'arc' (of probably a few chapters), none of which I can really reveal without there being spoilers for the next chapter. _

_But, it will feature the Doctor and TV based characters (rather than novel or audio drama based characters)._

_Thanks for reading,_


	18. Chapter 18

---

**Chapter 18**

The fallout from his 'adventures' in San Francisco had been somewhat significant Harry reflected.

The Ministry had been less than happy that they'd sent him with 'significant resources' and out of the four personnel that he'd been sent to retrieve he'd sent one back.

He could hardly be to blame for the one who had been crushed or stepped on or whatever had happened to him. Not that they did really try to blame him for that.

He did get a relatively glowing review for the rescue that he successfully carried out, despite stunning, insulting, shocking and generally scaring said person who he'd come to the rescue of.

The Ministry had been less accepting of Professor Marksdown Eversdale Eftosian-Thelos' death, despite Eftosian-Thelos being the one who had ambushed him intent on doing dastardly things to him and whatnot.

It seemed that some information from San Francisco had filtered back to England, possibly through Eftosian-Thelos' contacts, maybe into the hands of his former girlfriend, current pain in the proverbial.

Said information hadn't exactly bolstered his view that 'you know aliens, they exist', instead it had increased the wizard's 'head shoved squarely up their arses' view of the world.

Though there was also the flip side to this as with all things, with some of that very knowledge that had filtered down also increased the wizarding world (or more specifically those within power) that there were things out there that didn't fit into their prescribed view of the world.

As a result of all this he had agreed to assist the Minister with drawing out Eftosian-Thelos' chums so the Ministry could recover Junior Researcher Bartolemew Colmo.

--//

He really would have preferred to arrive on something with more than 1 horsepower Harry thought to himself looking up at the large manor house. This was the 10th he'd been to in the past 2 weeks.

_Officially _he'd been going to all these soirees, dinner parties, fancy dress balls and afternoon teas to 'defend his honor' after the Ginny's tell all article in the _Prophet _and her group's attempts to mark him out as a psychopathic killer and murderer of what they laughably called 'the truth'. He had at one point felt like writing into the _Prophet_ and making an _X-Files _joke when the _Prophet_ ran an article _not_ by Skeeter but still heavily quoting Ginny with the headline 'The Truth is Out There' which had for the most part been a recruitment drive by the enterprising young Weasley. 'The truth' wasn't really out there, it was whichever hovel Ginny was using to meet with other nutters and whackos.

Harry dismounted from his horse and tied him off at the waiting rail. Driving to any of these 'events' just wasn't an option, well it was in _theory_ if you drove something with no electrics in theory you could get close to a low level magic area, though theory and practise were two entirely different things.

He shifted as he walked up the stairs, the first few of these events he'd dressed himself nicely, nice enough for what he was doing here on the face of it and why he was _really_ present. But a 'muggle' suit hadn't gone down with the locals very well, though it had marked him out as odd, but not someone to talk to or mingle.

So he'd taken a trip down to Cardiff a week an a half ago, if there was anyone who knew where to get an interestingly cut outfit it was the man who'd been around block more than a few times.

"_Jack are you sure about this?" Harry asked as he looked in the mirror in the outfit. It hugged his figure in a lot of places, it wasn't something he'd generally usually wear._

"_You're looking fine Harry, real fine." Jack said grinning at him. Harry was beginning to question asking advice of someone who thought a blue shirt, braces, army boots and coat was fashionable all year round. _

"_See Harry and jacket hangs down past your waist so you can wear a holster just here." Jack slid a finger down Harry's left hand side all the way down to his thigh where he stopped._

"_I do believe Mr Harkness, your hand is on my thigh." Harry said in a mock-posh English accent. Jack just grinned at him, Harry shook his head._

"_You're sure I'll be able to ride a horse and dismount from this, without ripping anything?" He asked the tailor who had dreamt this concoction up. _

"_Yes sir, that's some of my finest work."_

"_Don't suppose you could add more Kevlar to the back."_

"_Harry there's only so much you can add, besides you'll ruin the cut of it." Jack said walking around him judging him from every angle._

"_I still think it's a little figure hugging." Harry looked at himself in the mirror._

"_You've got a figure that deserves" Jack grinned at him in the mirror. "hugging and then some."_

_He just smiled sweetly at the image of Jack in the mirror. There was even a place for his wand. Placed not on his wrist but worked into the design of his waistcoat to be unobtrusive yet easy to grab. _

"_Maybe I do need something." Harry said mostly to himself._

His outfit still felt like it was still accentuating various parts of him, even though he'd worn it a few times. He longed to get back to his house and change into something more comfortable…and less "hugging".

However, he needed to be here, to meet and greet and more importantly be a target.

All these houses seemed to have been designed by the same people, furnished by the same designer and lit by the same spells. At least they seemed to have different house elves cooking at these things Harry thought to himself as he looked around and popped something that resembled food into his mouth, he'd been offered it by a floating tray, though he hadn't wanted to ask anyone around him or the tray for that matter what it was. Everyone else seemed to be eating them and not keeling over so it seemed it wasn't poisonous.

It was tasty, though somewhat hard to identify what it was.

"This is what, your 4th engagement after a few years out of the wizarding world Potter? Was it really the skank Weasley that sent you rushing back here?" Asked a woman who had managed to sidle up beside him while he was looking around the room for anyone who was interested in him for reasons other than the way his trousers captured 'some of his qualities' as Jack had put it.

Harry looked beside him at the woman who had spoken with some familiarity. He experienced a momentary flash of recognition clouded by slight moment of vagueness.

"Ms Greengrass." He replied smoothly.

"Mr Potter, how do you do?" She put on an accent that seemed to veer slightly into a French accent for a moment, something many of the women here seemed to do. Perhaps it was the fashion?

"Very well Ms Greengrass. It's been sometime. How _have_ you been?" Harry asked curiously as he looked around the room, no one was really paying them any extra attention.

"You're such a gentleman to ask me _Mr_ Potter." She said with more than a hint of playful sarcasm present in her tone.

"I know aren't I? So how are you _really_ Ms Greengrass?" Harry asked looking at her and holding her gaze for a moment.

"Good Mr Potter. You appear to be holding yourself in good shape."

"So the appreciative looks from all the other pure blood harpies who've been looking at me like vampires seem to tell me."

"But to kill or saviour you Mr Potter that is the question." She said oddly seriously.

"And what would you do I wonder?" Harry asked as he watched a suspicious man across the room reach into his pocket.

"Throw you too them and while they're hacking you to pieces make my escape." She said casually as she took a glass of champagne from a passing tray.

"That's…" Harry paused for a moment as he processed what she'd said while he'd been concentrating on people trying to potentially kill him.

That, however was the point of his attending these things, _unofficially_ of course, to draw out the nutters to _try_ and kill him the Ministry would get some leads, _a _lead in fact. The well (they had told him at least) was somewhat dry or they could just be trying to kill him. But the Minister seemed to think there was somewhere up with these toffs that would try and kill him.

Though no one in all his previous engagements.

"That's…" He repeated again. "Good to know."

"Really?" She seemed genuinely curious. "I thought you Gryffindors would want us all to fight the good fight?"

"We're a long way from Hogwarts _Daphne_" She stared at him as he used her name. "and I'm far beyond those little caricatures of personality that we get lumbered with there. The universe is far more complicated than that."

He noticed that she didn't seemed irritated by him talking about the universe is such casual terms, some of the other wizards and wicthes he'd chatted to so far had disliked him using those terms. The solar system was about as far as they liked to thing. Perhaps that was as far as they wanted to see.

A gaggle of witches walked past him looking at him, he couldn't tell if they were sneering or judging him, probably both.

Harry sighed. "Yetis in the Underground, the Shoreditch Incident, Cybermen in the sewers, even if an attack squad of Daleks trundled through here, I wonder if anyone would look up from their canapés?" He mused to himself looking around the crowd.

"I'm sorry Potter?" Harry glanced to his side and realised that Daphne wasn't just still standing next to him but she was listening with a guarded expression.

"Just musing to myself _Daphne_."

She gave him a tight nod and looked around attempting to follow his gaze. "So _what_ is it you're doing here Potter? You still haven't given a good answer to me."

"Should I?" He mused curiously as he plucked something that looked vaguely like a quiche from a passing platter.

"Perhaps you shouldn't." She looked around the room. "Then I shall bid you good night Mr Potter." She raised her flute of champagne in a toast to him and then mingled back into the crowd leaving him at his vantage point in the room.

It was of course just as they were calling for the main course to begin that someone tried to stab him.

The main course had sounded very nice too, fabulous game birds, venison from the property the house sat on and some freshly caught (by wizards no less!) salmon.

"_Die you deviant scum_!" Hissed a voice his ear as the person behind him dragged a knife up his back, ripping the intricate and finely sewed stitching.

Harry twisted around and grabbed the pistol strapped to his leg.

And then shot his attacker in the knee caps…or somewhere close to the knee caps. Reading up on such things had been on his to do list for some time, he was just pleased that he hadn't just shot the carpet.

As he made his way over to his would be attacker, placing the man's wrists in ties he suddenly realised much of the room was staring at him.

He looked up and realised he wasn't going to get to taste the venison, nor the salmon, nor any other tasty thing on the menu. "Ah…well…he stabbed me first."

"Where's the blood?" Someone shouted out from the back of the room.

"Kevlar." He replied before realising that no one was likely to know what it was, many people started muttering around the room. He didn't get to explain further, or even grab another glass of something alcoholic when the Aurors arrived, grabbed him and his would be attacker and forced him into a side-along apparition.

"I played bait for you Minister, I didn't expect to be locked up for my troubles. We did have an agreement."

"You used a muggle _firearm_." The Minister stated. "Potter I know we had an agreement, but you need to temper your actions. Especially within the company that you were with last night."

"It's morning?" Harry asked. The cell he was in had no windows, just one door and a bucket to relieve himself in, exactly why the Ministry couldn't stretch to better facilities he didn't know, though he suspected it was a form of psychological manipulation, he had to give it to them if it was that. But it was just as likely to be an oversight, which was far more likely.

"Your wand and discharge notice." He handed both to Harry.

"I hope all these parties I've attended was worth it. It hasn't been the most enjoyable time."

The Minister's expression of general sourness (something he had a lot of the time when he called on Harry and the League of Paranormal Investigations) lifted to a wiry smile. "Now you have some idea of what I go through Potter."

"Plenty of backs to be slapped and even more people to stab in said area?" He asked as he stood, stretching his legs.

"Your insight has been enlightening as always Potter." Harry recognised that tone as the 'leave now Potter' tone.

"I'll be off then, probably a few dozen _aliens_ have popped up, making crop circles, drumming up people to interrogate and generally messing around..." Harry said in a teasing tone as he walked out the door. "Good day Minister, it hasn't been pleasant."

--//

Harry looked out around the fields that surrounded his house, these only the very outer fields he leased to his neighbours farm as they wished, these inner ones he'd been meaning to do something with for some time.

"It'll be a big job." Ioan said as he noted some things down in a notebook.

"That's why I'm coming to you Ioan, during the clear up of whatever that mildly radioactive sludge was you said you could organise it."

"Damn mutated spiders." Ioan muttered to himself, Harry chuckled.

"At least they didn't talk, have advanced mental powers or had a particular desire for blue crystals."

"What?" He gave him one of his many odd looks.

"Nothing, just something the Doctor told me about once."

Ioan nodded, he'd become used to Harry's 'the Doctor told me once' responses. "So are these dishes going to be a business expense?" He asked as they trudged back up towards his house.

"Of course, and of course you and Judith will be able to use them. I don't want to have to rely on UNIT, Torchwood or my hacking abilities to use their facilities should the need arise." Harry said.

"Though we'll still need to hack some of their satellites to reach further out." Ioan looked up at the sky as he said this.

"Well I'll see what the British government says." Harry said after a moment.

"The armed forces did give me the impression they could do anything UNIT could do." Ioan commented.

"Not to mention Torchwood." Harry said looking around carefully. There hadn't been much word from Ginny's group in the last few weeks, not since a month or two ago when the Ministry had announced the results of their "on-going investigation" following his attendance of a party where he _may_ have shot someone. Not that anyone was coming to ask him about it, as far as the wizarding world was concerned he'd 'gone muggle', was likely mad, deviant and 'wallowing as a degenerate with the muggles' as one reader of the _Prophet_ wrote. He wasn't really sure what they meant by that. But it was certainly a different type of insult, at least they were developing and evolving their abuse. It showed the wizarding world was capable of evolving.

"…and your neighbours if we can get a few on their properties it would improve our range a little more." Harry looked at Ioan who was looking at him.

"Sorry caught in thought. Yes, I get on with them, I can probably ask them if we can stick a dish or two on their barns. Or somewhere." Harry opened to door to his house motioning Ioan inside. "So you think you can sort it all out."

"If not me who would you get?"

Harry shrugged. "I'm sure you know people or something like that. You're the one I go to for this sort of thing Ioan. Plus backup, there's only so many people who wield a wand and don't want me dead."

"Or even just have an extreme dislike to you. If I knew your ex was so vicious I wouldn't have agreed to scouting out her meeting place with you."

Harry held up his hands in deference. "Not my fault she's paranoid."

"And don't forget vicious." Ioan leaned against the wall of Harry's kitchen, unconsciously rubbing his leg where he'd had a swarm of bats attack him. Fortunately there'd been no lasting damage.

"How's Judith doing? I haven't had the _benefit_ of her company recently." Ioan asked.

"Has she been picking your brain about the fact we're all penis waving, bastardising Latin, dress wearing secularised people?" Harry asked and then paused. "Or was that just me and Hermione she subjected that opinion to?"

Ioan chuckled. "She's not the only one, I did once try and bring in some of that, in with the ideas of aliens to our fellow wizarding brethren."

"I bet that went down like a blimp made of bricks." Harry quipped.

"And then some. So…?"

"She's still dealing with that Drahvan issue, the one _we_ couldn't deal with."

Ioan nodded and then shook his head. "Why they have to land in the middle of a wizarding village, why couldn't they land some where quiet in the middle of nowhere, we could just go in, tell them space is that way and then finish the day with a pint."

"Because life and the universe are not that friendly. As well we well know." Harry handed him a mug of tea.

"Are you still worried about how quiet your ex has been?" Ioan asked after a few moments silence watching Harry.

Harry looked out the window, thinking. "Yes. It's been a while since her rants in the paper or any other things around. Maybe she's settled down and done something constructive with her life."

"Like trying to kidnap you?" Ioan had found Ginny and her group's attempt to kidnap him by sneaking up him on brooms and flying carpets hilarious. It had been though just after Harry'd received delivery of a new car, a TVR Tuscan and had taken Ioan out for a ride in it.

"At least they didn't scratch it."

"Not with how you floored it Harry!" Ioan laughed. Harry had to smile too.

"As long as I don't have to bugger up _another_ Land Rover."

"I've noticed you still haven't got another one, despite your growing range of sports cars."

"Two isn't growing, that's just, well just two. The Land Rover is on order, I'm making sure it's completely military grade this time, I don't want to have to write off a vehicle every time I drive into combat."

Ioan shook his head. "If I thought I couple of years ago I could casually discuss all this over tea…" He shook his head trailing off.

"At least we're not boring." Harry offered.

"We wouldn't want to be _that_. Now would we?" Ioan deadpanned.

--//

Harry sorely wished the Ministry had CCTV even though he knew the impracticalities of this, he still wished they had it. Or some wizarding equivalent of it.

He turned the badge over in his hands again and wondered how the Ministry could be so stupid.

But then they were politicians, that was an answer in itself.

_How_ had they managed not to notice, and now only when he'd come in were they really starting to shed light on this.

Shacklebolt was meant to be clearing out everything, not…he was more lost for words as Shacklebolt explained what she'd stolen.

_Earlier in the week…_

The letter hadn't said much.

It had been from George asking to meet, urgently.

George looked worried, very much so.

"She's missing."

"Who?" Harry asked wrapping his hands around the mug George had provided. He was just taking a sip of the liquid contained within when George answered his question.

"Ginny…" George met his sour look with a neutral one of his own. "I know what you think. _I_ know what I think, but mum and dad have been on me to look into it. She sent Ron this weird howler that told him something like 'she was going to eradicate the collective consciousness and clear out the disease of the mindless barbarian horde.'"

"Poetic." Harry commented, George sighed.

"But she's been missing, along with some other people from her 'group'. Supposedly she brought them round to the Burrow a few times." George paused and looked around the store room and to the door out to the shop out to the shop where Angelina was minding the shop while they talked. Ron was out with Hermione, supposedly he'd been excited about somsehitng. "Mum was really happy that she'd gotten out of her 'Harry hole'" Harry blinked and stared at George an amused expression touching the corners of his mouth, though George didn't seem to notice. "Dad…" George paused and sighed. Harry hoped that he wouldn't start scratching the area around his ear again. Between himself and Angelina they'd been trying to help him with that. "I think dad got on with her groupies too well sometimes. Maybe it was all of his time in the muggle artifacts office…" He shook his head. "Maybe he was just supporting her." George look over to him. "I was just glad not to be in the house sometimes Harry. The memories, the feelings of…of time's past. I just needed to be away from there. But…" He trailed off again.

"She's still family?" Harry ventured after a while of silence. George nodded, though Harry continued.

"Not to be blunt though. Why should I worry? I've lost count of the verbal and written abuses that Ginny's hurled at me. Then there's the attempted kidnapping on my person," He paused and then added. "plus a rather unfortunate attempted murder of a group of associates that were in my company at the time." Unfortunate because of what Judith had done to the person acting on Ginny's orders, supposedly to make a statement about the non-existence of aliens that the League of Paranormal Investigations was carefully helping to extract themselves and their ship from a small hamlet.

George frowned deeply in thought and then looked at him deep concern in his eyes. "I know Harry, I know…but she's still my…my little sister, even if she is…" George's voice cracked a little bit.

The phrase 'absolutely barking mad with a side of insane and bat-shit crazy to go' came to mind which made him inappropriately smirk slightly, he chastised himself as he rushed across the room and grabbed a hold of George's outstretched hand that was ready to probably scratch his face off.

Harry drew him into a hug for a moment, it was strange how he'd become such a close friend to George even as his friendship with Ron changed and developed, a little part of him wondered if he and Ron were drifting apart. But whenever they hung out together they were back to being best friends, hanging out enjoying a game of Quidditch or whatever they chose to do, Hermione had pressed him to take Ron out in one of his cars to show him how fast muggle engineering could take him. Supposedly Ron's idea of fast was still based on the Ford Anglia, which was something that would need correcting.

George pulled away from him and leaned back into his chair, Harry returned to where he had been sitting, they remained silent for a few moments.

"Please Harry, I…I'm not sure if I'd handle it if…" George shook his head. "If she's got herself killed being an idiot or something."

Harry didn't let himself think about the **times** that he'd considered eliminating Ginevera Weasley.

"As a favour to you George I'll see what I can find out." He said after some time. George's body seemed to instantly relax at this.

_Present, The Ministry…_

The badge read: _Ginny Weasley, attending to the liberating thinking wizarding society and the destruction and removal of delusional subversive elements._

The text seemed both big enough to read and small enough to fit onto the badge.

He tried to ignore the mixed emotions he kept feeling within this room, _within_ the Department of Mysteries and instead focused on the task at hand.

The objects were near the time turners.

There were only a few of these. They were intricately constructed of fine metals within the workings he could see small dials of clocks; time, astrological and also hourglasses, all spinning and turning through their own imposed motion. They were slightly larger than a carriage clock, all had a tray that looked to fold out from the side.

These objects fascinated him, though he wasn't sure why.

"What are they?" He asked after he realised he'd been staring at them for some time, though if pressed he wasn't sure if he knew how long.

"These Potter are used to construct and calibrate time turners." Said an Unspeakable who was standing behind the Minister, masked in shadows.

"They're chronon sources." Harry said to no one but himself, in something of a whisper.

"They're used in pairs as to check time turners and one another, apart they can be…dangerous." Said the Unspeakable once more.

"Time is a dangerous thing, especially in the hands of a ma" Harry stopped himself from saying 'mad woman' "as someone with Ms Weasley's ideas."

"Potter I want Ms Weasley and her 'group' found." Minister Shacklebolt addressed him.

Harry couldn't help but ask. "Why not get the Department of Magical Law Enforcement on this? It was within the Ministry, a theft of wizarding equipment."

"I want this resolved with the same level of _detail_ you pay to other things Potter-" The Minister was cut off as a paper plane flew in. Shacklebolt grabbed it, swore and stalked out.

"The Minister is under some fire for allowing Ms Weasley and her group access." Said the mysterious Unspeakable, who was managing to stay obscured in shadow despite the lighing in the room. It was some feat of mysteriousness Harry had to admit.

"And the Aurors?" He asked the Unspeakable as he studied the time turner creating and calibrating devices.

"Maybe he doesn't trust them with a case such as this, maybe they're being inefficiently run." The Unspeakable said in a curious tone. "You could have been head of the Aurors Harry Potter, maybe you are, in another world."

Chills ran down his spine. "Multi-universe theory, well not so much of a theory, I know a guy who's been there, done that and probably got a novelty eye-patch and airship mug for his troubles." Harry replied casually. Then he turned around slowly to face the shrouded Unspeakable who standing impassively behind him. "Now, how dangerous are these?"

"Not extremely dangerous, there are more dangerous things Ms Weasley could have taken. But they have many properties and can affect the an individual through their interactions with the world."

"Very vague." Harry commented.

"It is what is known, what is written and what has been."

While the Ministry didn't have CCTV, the streets outside the Ministry did and it seemed that Ginny and her band of mad groupies didn't immediately apparate, and only some of them had invisibility cloaks, who seemed to be keeping an eye on her group as they had moved through the streets of London.

He'd lost them when they'd walked out into a football field and from the grainy images of the CCTV near the field it appeared they'd got on brooms and flown away.

For now he was waiting for the satellite images to be correlated together with several airport's air incident and other data to be collected and sent his way, it was something of a long shot, but there had been evidence that some pilots had seen wizards on brooms, though it was often passed off as bird swarms or other things.

Now he was at the door of The Burrow, with Judith and Ioan, to search their property, he also had a piece or parchment counter signed by the Minister and the Department of Mysteries authorising him to do so.

He wasn't sure if he was going to find something, but it was worth a try.

"I'm not sure I ever wanted to meet your ex's parents Harry." Ioan said as he looked around.

"I'm prepared just in case the mad bitch is here though." Judith patted the holster that contained a knife that Harry could attest was both dangerous and deadly.

"We're here to search, not destroy." Harry muttered patiently as he knocked on the door. He hadn't really been round to the Burrow all that often, whenever he met Ron it was practically always away from the Burrow. Neither he nor Hermione were quite as welcome as they used to be.

"Hello…oh Harry dear…what are you doing here?"

"Hello Mrs Weasley." He said with a smile and handed her the piece of parchment.

"What's this Harry?" She asked as she unrolled it. "Oh…Arthur!" She shouted into the house.

Harry waited patiently as they read the parchment.

"How serious is this?" Arthur asked him squarely.

"How serious do you think it is to be signed by the Minister and the Department of Mysteries?" Harry countered.

Arthur shook his head and showed them up to Ginny's room.

The three of them spent some time making sure they weren't going to be killed when they got into her locked room though. Ginny's countermeasures were rather interesting, Harry assumed she must have set something in place to stop her parents from being decapitated when they opened the door.

"Your really know how to pick them don't you Harry?" Judith said once they were in. "This is what you get for following your dick when you're in the throws of puberty and a life or death situation."

"Yes, I know" Harry said. "I should have just grabbed a copy of _Playwizard_ and 'read the articles'."

"There's _Playwizard_?" Ioan looked over at him raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know." Harry answered. "It wasn't something I really went looking for, I had other things on my mind."

"Yeah-" Judith started.

"And by that I mean Voldemort wanting me dead."

"Excuses, excuses Harry. She's quite the activist, though we knew most of this already." She motioned the flyers that were littered around the room with some thin publications extolling the value in early 'interventions'.

"Uh oh." Ioan said from across the room.

Both Judith and Harry looked up. "I don't like uh oh." Judith said not moving.

"Is this an 'uh oh I've just trodden on a landmine' or 'uh oh I think the shit has hit the fan'?" Harry asked, also not moving, but drawing his wand carefully.

"The latter I think." Ioan said stepping away from the blind he'd pulled down that had a map stuck to it, with what seemed to be weather charts over it.

"It's a map." Judith said somewhat disappointed.

"Stating the obvious, yes Jude it's a map." Harry received a punch on his arm. Judith hated being called 'Jude'.

"Of Cardiff." Ioan added.

"It looks like a weather map." Harry said as he crossed the short distance across the room.

"But it isn't." Ioan stated flately.

"Oh dear." Harry said staring at the map and what it centered around. The Cardiff rift. "Oh shit." Harry said after a moment or two.

"She's not _that_ mad?" Ioan asked, mostly to himself.

"I think she's probably more than that Ioan." Judith commented. "After all she's Harry's ex." She teased.

Harry sighed.

The CCTV footage over Cardiff was less than detailed, though Ginny and her group had definitely approached here on brooms, with the time turner calibrator and creator and he'd swept through all the CCTV around the where she'd flown. It was possible that she'd apparated out, with her broom. But it was unlikely considering what she the device she had with her.

Now he needed confirmation of a theory a theory he, Judith and Ioan had fleshed out after going through all the information Ginny had left in her room.

Harry wondered if Jack knew that he could see him despite what bit of technology prevented others from seeing the stone lift out of the ground.

Harry kept staring into the middle distance, not really looking around anywhere.

"Harry Potter. Need another suit?" Jack asked walking over to him.

"I did get stabbed in one of them, but no, and you were right they did…turn heads." Harry said with a smile, Jack matched his with a grin.

"That's not the only thing that would have turned." Jack grinned at him.

"This isn't a social call however." Harry said as he removed a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to Jack.

"Times and dates." He said looking at the data.

"I need to know if there was any rift activity during those times." Harry said without preamble.

"Should I ask why or how you know we monitor the rift?"

"You're Torchwood Jack, sitting on top of the Cardiff rift, what else would you be doing in your secret base aside from monitoring the it. After all it's when everything changes. As you like to say."

Jack stared at him for a moment. "Okay. As long as you tell me at some point what's going on."

"At some point." Harry acquiesced. "Should I wait around?"

"This won't take long." Jack said and stood on his magic step as Harry pretended not to see it disappear into the ground. He also stopped himself from peering down into the hole, that investigation could wait for another day.

--//

The Cessna 172 sat on the runway just outside Cardiff.

He'd chosen it carefully from a restorer, it was a genuine plane of the era, restored in America, totally airworthy, and it had never been to the UK.

It was important to get these things right, considering what he was going to do.

He checked the time turner calibrator, it was safely packed into a case next to his seat on the plane, the rear of the plane's cargo capacity was given over to other storage containers with things he thought he might need.

"Harry are you really sure about this?" Hermione asked as he watched him go through the procedures of checking it.

"He's not just sure, he's determined Ms Granger." Hermione turned Harry looked up, Jack was standing just behind Hermione.

_Earlier…_

"You're mad Harry."

"Not the comment I was hoping for Hermione. But I'm relatively sure that's where she is."

"But if she had changed something wouldn't we notice it by now?" Hermione asked, falling into her chair.

"Time doesn't work like that, but I know that I do this." He removed a photo from a folder, he'd scanned it a year or so ago when he was scanning various documents onto his computer from a variety of research projects. "This is from a Christmas party back then, now" he paused and removed an enlarged image.

Hermione looked at the people in the photo, there were a lot of people in uniforms, she was pretty sure there was a Captain and a Sergeant in the photo. "So?"

"Take a look at this, it's an enlargement of the mirror in at the back there, now look who is hiding behind the tree."

Hermione stared at the photo, and then looked back up to Harry. "And when was this photo taken?"

Harry answered. "Or there abouts. They couldn't publish this, it was buried under the Official Secrets Act."

"And you think now is the time you're going to do this?"

"Yes. That's why for the time being I'm making you executor of LPI and why I've been telling you all this."

_Present…_

"I'm determined not to let her muck around with history. I'm determined to bring her and any of her groupies back. The Ministry has approved this." Harry said to his two friends watching him. When the Ministry had found out they had authorised him to do whatever necessary to get her back, lest she contaminate the timeline, that was the Unspeakables and himself chatting though.

"You could end up anywhere or anywhen. The rift isn't a time machine Harry, I know that, more than you think."

"Jack. I know. And I also think this is going to work."

"You think." Both Hermione and Jack said together.

That made Harry smile. "I know."

"Because of a photo?" Hermione asked.

"Call it temporal intuition." Harry said.

All the pre-flight checks checked out, everything was ready.

He bade one final goodbye to Jack, Hermione Judith and Ioan who all were waiting to see the 'mad man' off. As Judith had put it.

"You shouldn't have too much trouble while I'm away, if I'm away at all." Harry said casually to them as he made his way to depart.

Time travelling via the rift wasn't a science, nor was it an art, it was more… intuition, you felt your way around it…or something like that, Harry thought to himself as he aimed the nose of the Cessna 172 at the coordinates he'd gathered earlier from Jack.

…then…nothing…but something…It greatly reminded him washing his clothes in a washing machine. Only if someone had turned up the contrast and everything washed out into white and lens flare.

Then he was somewhere else…yet not. He twisted the radio controls looking for the frequency Hermione had open and transmitting, he tried it, and all he got was static.

It wasn't proof, but he changed the frequency and started broadcasting on a frequency he hoped someone would be listening on, together with the identification codes he hoped would be valid.

--//

He landed the plane easily on the runway and opened the door as he saw a group of cars and trucks drive up, men jumping out of the truck were taking up firing positions.

One man got out of the truck and was clearly the leader, he knew that not just from the photo but from the description of him.

Another of the cars was very distinct, as was the man. Both stood out against the dark green of the special military forces, the former by way of its colour and the man…well he wasn't a man in the conventional sense. He wasn't human for starters.

--//

_Author Notes:_

_I've ended this chapter here with enough clues as to when this is set and what's happening. _

_Next chapter will be more revealing and much of the intro will be the flipside to these last few paragraphs. (Which is deliberately sparse to avoid spoilers) _

_This is the beginning of the story arc as mentioned last chapter._


	19. Chapter 19

---

**Chapter 19**

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart looked up from his paper work as his door was knocked on and someone entered.

"Sergeant Benton." Lethbridge-Stewart said looking up.

"Sir. Our monitoring station in Cardiff picked up a signal." He reported.

Lethbridge-Stewart nodded. The Cardiff station picked up a lot of signals, many of which seemed to center around central Cardiff, but his requests for a further men to cover Wales and specifically the strange occurrences within there seemed to fall on deaf ears. It wasn't as though he was ignorant of _that_ group operating there, even if it did so with whatever blessing. _He _was here to do a job just as much for his country, but _those people_ seemed to have more of a personal agenda.

"I'm sure other groups can take care of it Benton." He said restraining the distaste that threatened to creep into his words.

"But sir…" He paused. "The signal was on _our_ frequency, with _our_ identification codes. Upper priority high clearance." Benton handed the Brigadier the notation of said codes.

"From within central Cardiff Benton?" He asked looking at the information frowning.

"Above it sir, it's coming from an aircraft."

Lethbridge Stewart thought for a brief moment. "Scramble the air force, tell them to guide the aircraft to our aerodome."

"Sir!" Benton saluted and made for the door.

"Benton." He turned around at the Brigadier's voice.

"Sir?" Benton snapped back around to face him.

"Is Ms Grant back from leave?"

"No sir." Benton answered.

"Then tell the Doctor to meet me down there. This should liven his day up." Benton saluted again and departed the room.

Lethbridge-Stewart looked again at the identification codes. These hadn't yet been issued. They'd been approved of course, but hadn't yet been issued to anyone.

"What is it now Brigadier, I'm very busy." The Doctor bristled as he met the Brigadier on the way to the car park.

"Trying to fix the gubbins in your TARDIS again Doctor?"

"That 'gubbins' Brigadier is the lock out the Time Lords have on my TARDIS."

"You managed to deal with the Axons with that loop of yours."

"That's different Brigadier…and…" The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. "The Master was of some assistance in that small regard."

The Brigadier smiled. "Something to distract you then Doctor." He handed the Doctor the piece of paper with the codes on it.

"These are the new codes I came up with for you Brigadier." The Doctor said after looking at the piece of paper for less than a second.

"Your special codes that no one could dream up." Lethbridge-Stewart added.

"A simple piece of mental arithmetic Brigadier. Keeps the mind sharp, even if it is such a simple task."

"Benton handed that too me earlier, someone was broadcasting _those _clearance codes."

"Interesting Brigadier, I suppose this is why Sergeant Benton frog marched me from my lab?"

"Yes Doctor, _you_ are UNIT's scientific advisor. You do have a job to do around here."

The Doctor drove up and got out of Bessie at the same moment as the Brigadier got out with his soldiers. The Doctor noted they were all taking up positions to fire on the Cessna, a 172 if he wasn't mistaken.

"What do you think Doctor?"

"It looks Brigadier exactly what your eyes and ears see, a plane."

"Yes but-" He was cut off as the door of the plane opened. "Positions!" He roared at his men.

"Oh my…" The Doctor was saying as he was walking forward.

Lethbridge-Stewart stared at the Doctor and vowed to talk to him about safe operating procedures and lines of fire.

Then he did something unexpected _even_ for the Doctor, he hugged the man who had stepped out of the plane.

"Harry Potter, how very good to see you old chap." He was saying as the Brigadier walked over.

"Harry this is-"

"Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. It's an honour to meet you sir." Said the man.

"Who the devil is this Doctor?"

"This Brigadier, is a very good friend of mine." The Doctor said as he clapped a hand on the man's shoulder. "Harry James Potter, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Now Harry what are you doing here and _now_?" The Doctor asked with some concern.

"Is Liz Shaw around…or Jo Grant?" He asked after a moment.

"Liz is back in Cambridge, Jo's on leave…but how do you know about…" The Doctor trailed off looking at Harry.

"This is going to get somewhat complicated Doctor, Brigadier sir, if I could secure my aircraft somewhere I think I should explain." He said somewhat guiltily.

"Doctor, who was that man?" Lethbridge-Stewart demanded of the Doctor as the man 'Harry James Potter' was lead by his men to secure his aircraft in one of UNIT's hangers.

"He Brigadier, he is an old friend."

"Like the Master?" Lethbridge-Stewart asked, watching the emotions play across the Doctor's face. He seemed somewhat amused by the idea.

"No, not like the Master Brigadier, I don't think he would be mixed up with Harry. Harry is someone I have had the fortune to meet on several occasions, throughout my lives, it has enriched me and I have found him to be something of an enlightening person old chap. Though…" The Doctor paused, rubbing his chin in thought as he watched the man pull his plane into one of UNIT's hangers.

"Though?" The Brigadier prompted.

"The last time I met him he was far younger than he is now, which presents several issues."

"Issues, Doctor what are you talking about?" Lethbridge-Stewart asked frustratingly.

"Time my dear Brigadier, the time stream and its complexities, far beyond your understanding of course, I think we should bring young Mr Potter back to HQ so he can explain or enlighten us as to what he is doing here." The Doctor started scratching his cheek in thought. "And where and more to the point _when_ he has come from."

Harry couldn't help but grin. He was here, he hadn't _died_ and he hadn't been smeared across the centuries. He also hadn't voided his lease by smearing his plane across the multiverse, that would have been very irritating.

And, and he was sitting in the middle of a UNIT convoy, in a bright yellow English roadster called Bessie, next to his friend; the Doctor.

It was brilliant despite the dangers he faced being here…

_Earlier, several years in the future in 2003. Though not so long ago for Harry…_

"Harry do you have any idea what you're proposing, if this is when Ginny is…" Hermione shook her head. "Here I am talking about 'when' as though it's a casual thing. It's incredibly dangerous what you're thinking of doing."

"You're the one who used a time turner for a year." Harry countered calmly.

"Really? A year?" Ioan asked surprised.

Harry, Judith, Hermione and Ioan were sitting around Harry'd sitting room discussing the complexities of his 'jaunt'.

"I do Hermione, I understand the dangers. I understand them far more than Ginny and her little group of vigilantes does."

"But this is the 1970s, that's when Voldemort came to power, that's when…" Hermione trailed off.

"And I understand that Hermione." Harry fixed her with a calm cool stare. "It's not as though I'm going to rush up to Hogwarts, slap Sirius on the back and then shake James' hand say 'hey dad I'm your son'. I understand some levels of the Web of Time and its laws, that's why I need to go. To stop Ginny's misguided and insane attempts to pervert it."

"But wouldn't we have seen its affects if she had?" Judith asked curiously. Then added. "Just putting it out there."

"No. Time doesn't work like that, sometimes it does if she went meddling in the causal nexus of large events, but smaller things may be altered…it's…well it's complicated. Even I don't know everything about this." Harry finally admitted.

"So why are _you_ going?" Hermione pressed.

"Because _I_ can do this."

_Present… _

"The Brigadier didn't want UNIT HQ close to the airfield. A safety risk. Sometimes the military mind is capable of intelligent thought. But he keeps his beloved flying mobile HQ with the RAF elsewhere." The Doctor called to him over the wind noise. Obviously he hadn't installed whatever wind noise dampening system he had when he visited him. Or would visit him.

This was going to very quickly get confusing making sure his tenses were correct.

The Doctor was mainly silent for the trip to UNIT HQ.

For which Harry was grateful for, while he went through what he was going to say (again).

He hadn't been entirely sure when he was going to turn up, despite the photo, which was undated, all it meant was he was/would be/had been here. But he hadn't been completely sure when he was going to turn up, after the Doctor had met him or before. It was looking likely to be the latter, which presented additional complications.

"Well Mr Potter, I think you have some explaining to do." The Brigadier leaned back in his chair looking at the younger man across his desk.

"I just need to ask a few things. Have you met the Master more than once?"

The Brigadier looked over at the Doctor, who nodded slightly.

"So you know who the Master is do you?" Harry smiled broadly at the Brigadier's question.

"I know you know who he is, and you haven't captured him yet?"

"No. But I think this is enough questions, now I want some explanations." Lethbridge-Stewart stated.

"You're trying to establish when you are Harry."

Harry nodded and interceded. "More than that…." The Doctor continued and gave him the date. "Ah." Harry said with a frown.

"Then I think it would be beneficial to the time stream for Miss Grant not to meet me." Harry said calmly as he looked at the Doctor.

"Why the devil would that be a worry?" Lethbridge-Stewart looked between him and the Doctor.

"We've met before Harry, in your past," The Doctor said and then muttered "my future."

"The problems of a time traveller." Harry commented lightly.

"But this won't do at all, you can't be here running about. With what you know Harry."

"I'm aware of my knowledge and the Web of Time Doctor." Harry countered.

"The web of what?" The Doctor asked baffled.

Harry widened his eyes. "Oops. Never mind. Not important. I'm aware of the multitude of paradoxes that I've got to avoid whilst I'm here."

The Doctor rose from his chair. "I assume you've not met the Brigadier before?"

He shook his head.

"I think to preserve the time stream you should discuss your situation with the Brigadier young man. I'll see you later. Brigadier." The Doctor said, somewhat briskly, then he walked out the door, closing it firmly.

"I've never seen him that…"

"Annoyed." Harry provided. "I'm from the future, more to the point I've met the Doctor in his own personal future. Supposedly time travellers, or maybe just _he_ gets a bit snarky when this sort of thing happens." Harry said with a slight chuckle.

Lethbridge-Stewart almost missed Potter's statement in amongst his casual assessment of the Doctor.

"The future?"

"I think…I think I should explain and give you a brief summary of my history, then things might make a little more sense." Harry said after a moment's thought.

Alistair leaned back as he listened to this young man, Harry Potter tell his story.

It was a fantastical story, or rather it would have been a few years ago, before he'd met the Doctor.

Though the Doctor's presence in his life had been accidental, both the first and subsequent times. But with Harry he seemed to have deliberately sought him out, for the better it seemed. The Doctor was a hard man…a hard person and personality to get into, Miss Shaw had seen that, as did Miss Grant, though Miss Grant had the wide eyed openness to learn and deal with the Doctor.

Harry Potter though had a different bearing about him as he told of his early life with his adoptive relatives and through his schooling subsequent battles throughout his teenage years, against whom though Potter seemed reticent to say. Someone from his 'magical' world, the idea seemed farcical, yet also too real.

He recognised Potter's bearing and personality as he spoke, he'd seen it in some of his men, he saw it in the mirror sometimes as well. Though in Potter he saw more of it, plus a cool sense of disconnection, it was in part chilling how dispassionately he spoke of some of the things that had happened.

"So you run an organisation like UNIT, where you're from…dealing with this 'magic'."

"And aliens and whatever other paranormal activity the wizarding government doesn't want to get its grubby little fingers sticky with. They'd I think just be happy to ignore all of it, but things are going to start getting more and more messy," He said and then added. "and modifying people's memories is not going to fix it."

Lethbridge-Stewart nodded though he only understood most of that. _He_ only had the official secrets act to throw at people. Memory modification would probably be seen as a far more efficient method of information control, though it was a relief most of the encounters thus far had been explained away by some spin merchant in her majesty's government.

After the tea lady had brought in some tea and biscuits Harry continued as to _why_ he was here, here and now.

"Why come to us Mr Potter? If I might be so bold? You seem a capable person, you could I assume track down this young woman and her cohorts without UNIT's assistance."

"Ah, well…" Harry began. "You see Brigadier sir. I do need help. A base of operations for starters and, the Doctor…just not yet."

_Earlier, in the future, Harry's past, prior to travelling back in time…_

Jack handed him the coordinates of the rift fluctuations for that day, they'd been carefully calculated and plotted.

"Ya know Harry, even _if_ you don't get splattered across the timelines what's to say that you get there."

"I've got a device that should home in on the general temporal location of _her_."

"Ginny Weasley, the redheaded bombshell. I've always liked explosive personalities." Jack said with a smile as he sipped his second pint. Harry was still on his first.

"Ginny's more a fragmentation grenade and needs to be stopped before she damages the timeline."

"You sound like the Doctor sometimes when you talk like that." Jack said to him. "It's kinda cute." That made Harry smile. "How do you plan on getting back once you get there? Or do you plan to rely on blind luck to get you back here?"

"I'm going to grab a lift." Harry said simply.

"With the Doctor." Jack said in sudden realisation.

Harry nodded. "I might have to wait around for a little bit, bit it shouldn't be too long, I know what happens to him, even if he won't."

"Big responsibility." He commented.

Harry leaned back in his chair, and looked out the window. "It is and not just because I know about the Doctor…there's my own personal history to avoid."

_Present (for Harry), the Brigadier's office, UNIT HQ…_

"The Doctor can't go anywhere in his TARDIS Mr Potter, he tried with the Master and that Axons, some retched 'time loop' business the Time Lords marooned him here."

"Exiles don't last forever Brigadier." Harry replied simply.

"And you need a base of operations, why here, if you knew that running into the Doctor and Miss Grant was fraught with complications?" Lethbridge-Stewart took a sip of his tea.

"Because of certain events going on in the wizarding world would prevent me from creating a base for myself there. That is also why, if I might be so bold I will be an asset to you."

"How so Mr Potter?"

"Events in the wizarding world will start to spill out into the normal world quite soon, I can think of no other organisation that is suitably placed to deal with them, and not even the Doctor is as qualified as I am to deal with it."

Lethbridge-Stewart watched the door close, Sergeant Benton would look after Mr Potter whilst he thought about Mr Potter's request. Almost on cue the Doctor burst into the room and flung himself down into Mr Potter's recently vacated chair.

"Please Doctor come in, make yourself at home."

"Well Brigadier?" The Doctor asked.

"Well Doctor, _he_ is your friend. Though he hasn't travelled with you like James McCrimmon and Zoe?"

The Doctor was silent. "No. But he is still a friend Brigadier. What did he ask for?"

"Assistance in locating a terrorist group from his own time who he believes travelled here."

The Doctor was silent once more before speaking. "And what are you going to do?"

"He offered his assistance Doctor, to help UNIT with certain _magical_ problems." Lethbridge-Stewart had to smile, very slightly at the Doctor's reaction.

"Good grief, he told you about that. You're beginning to keep an open mind Brigadier!" The Doctor seemed very pleased about his word usage.

"I need to keep an open mind, especially with trouble you attract Doctor. Mr Potter also said it would be best for Miss Grant not to know of his presence here."

The Doctor was again silent. "He's met her, something we shouldn't begin to tamper with. It seems Harry has a greater understanding of time travel than I gave him credit for. Or rather he will develop a greater understanding of time travel. From my perspective or course."

"Time travel, time loops, Time Lords. You complicate everything Doctor." Lethbridge-Stewart muttered to himself.

"All part of the marvels of the universe Brigadier." The Doctor smiled at him. "And will you help him?" He pressed, concern present in his voice.

Lethbridge-Stewart looked over at the Doctor who seemed to be hanging waiting for him to answer, it was somewhat strange the Doctor being this concerned about _anyone_. It might be good for Mr Potter to spend some time with the Doctor to soften him somewhat.

Though Mr Potter had cautioned against too much of this, the 'Web of Time' and his and the Doctor's time streams and personal histories and other techo-gubbins he talked about. Or at least till they worked out some complexities, whatever that meant.

He nodded, and it seemed the Doctor instantly relaxed. "It wouldn't do to ah…crowd Harry though. I think a respectable distance should be kept."

"You might be tempted to ask about your future Doctor?"

"An issue of a time traveller, even a grounded one, my dear Brigadier, is that it is always possible to meet someone you have not yet already met. It is the mark of en experienced time traveller _not_ to ask such questions." Then the Doctor stood up and left the room.

--//

Harry woke up with a start and a slight panic as to where he was, the room was quiet, empty and a little bleak.

Then it all rushed back. He was in UNIT HQ and he'd travelled back in time, to find and stop one Ginny Weasley and to _neutralise _and of her associates.

That was something he hadn't told Hermione, though he had confided in Judith.

The ministry hadn't outright told him, but it had been suggested that he _could_ bring back Ginny to stand trial but the others it might be better served to _eliminate_ them.

He and Judith had gone through the information they'd taken from Ginny's room and matched it against the CCTV footage and from their recollection of their previous encounters with Ginny and her group, or the associated groups that she frequented.

There was a limit to how many people could have _safely_ transversed the Cardiff rift, that anyone had made it through without something to home in on was a miracle. But he was here, with the time turner calibrator which meant its pair was also around somewhere.

It was a pity he couldn't use it as a homing device.

He'd deliberately not brought anything like that, lest he contaminate the timeline.

He'd just started to check out the small laboratory that was next to his room when there was a knock on the door; then Sergeant Benton walked in.

"Sir. The Brigadier said I should show you around the place." Harry looked at the Sergeant for a moment, who was standing quite straight.

"Um, at ease?" Harry said curiously. "Sergeant, I don't have a rank, if you want you can think of me as like the Doctor."

"Sir?" Benton replied.

"Though I'm human Sergeant" Harry paused. "the Doctor isn't and I'm rankless." He grabbed a jacket that was sitting on the back of the chair. "Okay lets have a look around this HQ." He said as he closed the door. "You know the people I need to avoid seeing?"

"Yes sir, the Brigadier explained, no contact with Miss Grant."

"Ah but the why is so much more interesting than that, but for another time I think." Harry said mysteriously.

--//

Lethbridge-Stewart walked into the laboratory he'd given over to Harry Potter and couldn't believe it.

In slightly under 3 weeks he'd managed to fill it with at least half as much junk as the Doctor's laboratory.

"Potter! Where are you?" He said in a raised tone looking around.

"Brigadier sir?" Lethbridge-Stewart saw the man stand up, he had some techno-gubbins in his hands.

"Ah Potter. I need you to come with me, time to earn your keep."

"Where are we going?" Harry asked as he slipped on a jacket and turned off the soldering iron. It hadn't been easy constructing equipment to scan for energy signatures, especially as he hadn't wanted to bring the pages of notes that he used to construct his device back in 2003, which had been provided through K-9 and then most likely by the Doctor. But he made sure he knew the basics. But even then the technology he was working with was somewhat retro. However it was fortunate the Doctor was in the middle of fixing up his TARDIS; that provided several parts to build a simple time scanner, though that would only help if she had been exposed to high amounts of chronon energy during he trip through the Cardiff rift. His time turner calibrator had been properly prepared to channel its energy for the journey through, in order to home in on its pair during the journey through the rift, but now it was useless as a homing device.

What he wanted to do was go and have a wander around the wizarding world, which would be incredibly dangerous for innumerable reasons. He'd been waiting for Hogwarts to resume to hopefully cut down those innumerable reasons to just vaguely dangerous reasons.

"Nasty business, Potter." Lethbridge-Stewart said once they were in the Land Rover.

Harry nodded. It sounded like it. This was something that he'd never really known a lot about, the early stages of the wizarding war with Voldemort.

_Earlier, in the past…actually the future, but the past for Harry…_

Judith and Ioan had left them to talk together.

"You're really sure, you won't get tempted to _interfere_?" Hermione asked, deep concern present in her voice.

Harry smiled softly. "You mean go and find Voldemort and kill him before he has a chance to kill however many people. Including my parents?"

"Something like that Harry." Hermione stated seriously.

He nodded. "It is something I've thought about. But no. I'm not stupid enough to go messing with big events like that."

"And smaller ones?" Hermione asked after a few moments.

"Well…that depends on how I'm involved once I'm there."

"But Harry you-"

He cut her off. "I'm not going to interact with anyone who is connected to me too directly if I can avoid it or to events we know of as history. But Ginny is _already_ changing things by being there. Perverting the course of time."

_Present…(in the past)…_

It looked like a bomb had gone off in the hamlet. But it was what was in the clouds that gave him chills on top of his chills.

A skull embossed on the clouds with a snake slithering its way out of it.

No wonder UNIT had been called.

They were standing on the edge of the 'bomb site'. He could see bodies in the middle of the town, they appeared to be arranged around a war memorial.

The smell or charred flesh was wafting over towards them.

Harry started down the small incline into the town, it was only when he was walking up towards the pyre that he realised he was alone.

All the UNIT soldiers and who ever else they had brought with them were standing, still, watching.

Jogging back to the Brigadier he addressed him. "Sir? Can you hear me?"

"Yes, Potter I can hear you, but I can't…" He was lost for words, or he lacked the vocabulary to describe whatever spell was in place here.

"You can see it though can't you?" Harry asked in a calm voice.

"Yes." Was the Brigadier's soft monotone reply, as though he was struggling.

"Take a step forward." Harry said calmly.

"I…" The Brigadier faltered.

"You're going to listen to me." Harry stepped into the Brigadier's field of vision. "You're going to listen to my voice, you're going to focus." Harry said as he fixed his stare with the Brigadier's. "It is your _duty_ to walk into this town, you are the commanding officer of UNIT. You _have_ to be in charge. You _will_ walk in. _You will obey me._" Harry said firmly, not breaking his gaze with the Brigadier.

"I will obey. I will obey…" Harry smirked to himself as the Brigadier mumbled to himself, then he started taking steps forward, falteringly though.

He hoped whatever spell had been cast here would be broke by the Brigadier walking in.

This wasn't a notice-me-not charm or anything simple like that, whoever cast the spell _wanted_ this atrocity to be seen, and obviously didn't want anyone to disrupt it.

It was almost like the Brigadier was fighting a reverse Imperius curse, that was making him stay on the edge of the area.

The Brigadier came to a stop. "What the…Potter?" He shouted. Harry walked swiftly over to where he was standing.

"Can you see what's around you Brigadier sir? No desire to escape, run away…?" Harry asked quietly and calmly.

"Why the devil would you think that Potter?" He seemed to stand a little straighter just from Harry's question.

"Because you've walked into an area that paralysed you a moment ago." Harry gestured the Land Rover they'd arrived in.

"How did we get here?"

"You walked my dear Brigadier. You walked." Harry said as he looked around scratching his chin. "I wonder if it's just the act of coming in here or you actually need to walk in yourself." He said mostly to himself. "Stay here Brigadier."

Driving in and out of the area seemed to work, as long as it was someone who had had the spell broken for them.

Oddly though only the UNIT personnel managed to stay within the area, the local coroner the Brigadier had brought in ran away screaming himself hoarse.

The Brigadier suggested to him that it was the specialised training that UNIT personnel went through.

Or, Harry thought to himself it was the stresses and unique positions they were exposed to through being part of UNIT.

By the time a coroner from UNIT had arrived the Dark Mark was only _just_ starting to dissipate.

"So this is what history looks like." He muttered to himself as he watched the body bags begin to be unpacked from the coroner's vehicle.

--//

Author Notes:

Harry meets the Brigadier and UNIT a short time after the events of The Claws of Axos.

UNIT dating is notoriously confusing and contradictory, so I'm going to avoid any mention _in story_ of the date.

Next chapter I'll be making some references directly to the wizarding world to establish a date in relation to events in the wizarding world.

I've wanted to have Harry meet the Brigadier and UNIT when they were in their prime and this story arc is something I've had in mind for a while. Even though how I see Harry and Ginny has changed a little bit from my initial ideas it hasn't changed largely from how I originally had ideas for this arc.

The meeting between this Doctor (Third) Jo Grant and Harry happens in Chapter 4, this is Harry's past but the Doctor and Jo's future.

So she can't meet Harry until she meets him for the first time in her future.


	20. Chapter 20

---

**Chapter 20**

Harry looked around him.

Then he did turned 360 again, he was still in something of a stupor.

It had been like this earlier in the day, he'd gone into the town near UNIT HQ to get some contemporary clothing for his investigation.

He decided not to try for the Doctor's unique fashion styling. Though he did appreciate how the Doctor carried himself with confidence now, and later. Though, velvet and frock coats wasn't quite for him.

Though what he was wearing wasn't _exactly_ modern it was contemporary-ish and wasn't military inspired which was what he'd been wearing mostly around UNIT.

He fancied it made him look a bit like Indiana Jones, he even had a hat. Though the hat and rather archaic looking tinted glasses were more to hide his eyes, while the hat and how he'd squashed his hair was to hide his scar.

The brown leather jacket he'd donned did somewhat remind him of the Doctor, whom he'd met; who the Doctor was yet to become.

"I thought knowing a time traveller was confusing, now I'm doing it." He said to himself looking around again. He patted his pocket again, just to reassure himself he had his wand with him, he'd need it to get into where he was heading.

It was a somewhat long walk through London to his destination, just because he was taking it slow, taking in the sights, the wonder, it was like being on another planet. Yet another planet wouldn't give such an odd disconnected feeling of familiarity and wonder.

It was amazing; he couldn't stop grinning as he looked around.

All this wonder, newness and everything was so disconnected from the site he'd been at with the Brigadier a fortnight ago.

UNIT hadn't been called to anything like that again, _so far_.

_He'd_ been waiting until now to make his approach. Into the wizarding world. Into a particular pub that he was now standing outside of.

He was very sure now that Hogwarts had returned, which meant his mother, his father, his godfather, his former teachers and Pettigrew had all returned for their second year at Hogwarts, and therefore there would be no chance of running into them.

_No chance at all. _

Not that he wanted to meet them. He understood what he was doing, what he was doing here, why he was here.

Corrupting the timeline further wasn't part of his plan.

They were all younger than him, their second year; Sirius was still living with his parents, Lily was still friends with Severus. There was so much to come for them. For the whole wizarding world.

He couldn't, wouldn't disrupt that.

He realised after a moment he was still standing, looking at the Leaky Cauldron entrance, he still hadn't crossed the road towards it.

Standing instead pontificating to himself about the hows, whens and whatevers of his current predicament, his future parents, future godfather, future friends, teachers and…other people.

He took a breath of air and adjusted his tinted glasses, it felt so weird to be wearing glasses after so long without them, something he had the Doctor to thank for, _this_ Doctor in fact, though of course in _the Doctor's_ future.

Shifting his hat again, he made his way across the road.

Not that anyone would see his scar and say anything, _here, now_ it would just be another scar, of which he had many. But in the future it would mean something and many would remember and know it, know him.

He stood at the door of the pub and took a breath again and walked in.

It was just as it was, as it had been, would be…whatever.

He briefly gazed around, there were some drinkers, and some people gave him a once over look, but no one seemed to pay him much attention as he walked through and towards the entrance to a famous alleyway.

Taping his wand through the sequence of bricks he got a chill running down his back as they folded away and revealed the alleyway.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley." He said to himself.

Ioan had written an analysis essay that he'd self published and sent around the wizarding community, it had been after he'd been 'asked to leave', but had still got some traction, he'd even made some money from it. It had been speaking about the static nature of the wizarding world, its closed mindedness, the way it extended through all parts of wizarding life. The unmoving nature of wizarding society.

A part of that essay came to mind as he looked out into the Alley, _nothing_ had changed, from long in the past till when he'd written his essay, and he postulated nothing would change unless something Earth shattering occurred.

But it wasn't just the shops, they prided themselves on their longevity, on their heritage.

It was the people, the styles, the way everyone carried themselves. Everything hadn't changed, or wouldn't changed.

"Tenses." He muttered to himself, chastising himself once more for talking aloud.

Though he knew there would be some changes, if he turned a corner there would be no Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Turn another corner there would be Ollivander's. A shop he would definitely _not_ be going, the man seemed to know more things than the average wizard and he didn't want to give him the heads up 20 or so years before he actually visited him.

It was the distinct lack of a cultural change, he expected there to be some sort of difference, as London was outside of the alley such a disconnect between the London he knew and this present London.

Not just the people, but the atmosphere, everything. But there was, nothing had changed between now and in 30 or so years in the future, that is prior to the _second_ wizarding war with Voldemort, the _first_ was barely noticeable _for now._

He shook himself out of his pondering and walked forwards towards Gringotts.

He had considered bringing money from his present back, though the considerations involved gave him a headache.

He knew he was going to need money, both in this and the regular world.

Instead of cash he'd brought with him a selection of precious stones and some gold.

For now though he needed to get some contemporary wizarding cash.

The goblins thankfully didn't give him a second look, didn't ask him to open an account nor did they question him about where the diamond came from, they went off, checked it again and then gave him a hefty sum of coins.

Which lead him to lining up again to change the (rather surprising) amount of coinage into a substantial amount paper pounds. He was glad for the large pockets in his jacket pockets.

Looking around the alleyway from the front of the bank the first place he decided he needed to go was Flourish & Blotts not for its books but for its range of regularly printed media. To see what was making the headlines, including any female redheads looking to pervert history in this time of change and unrest… Voldemort was also out there somewhere too. Harry thought to himself as he looked up at the sky, and probably no one around knew how long what coming was going to last. And he was the only one, other than Ginny and her fanatics that knew how it would end, that was another reason they needed to be found and eliminated.

The bookshop was exactly the same, the books for Hogwarts were still out, some were earlier, though new editions of books he'd used at Hogwarts, some were variations on the same theme. But what he was looking for were the periodicals.

It made him smile that they were located in the same place, on the same shelving, though they were cheaper, so obviously the wizarding economy did change through time.

He grabbed the previous day's copy as well as today's copy of the _Daily Prophet_, also copies of _Transfiguration Today, Challenges in Charming _and _The Practical Potioneer_ not that he thought Ginny might be publishing anything, but just in case, and it paid to be detailed. It also seemed that Xenophilius Lovegood was already working; he grabbed a copy of _The Quibbler it lay_ on the bottom shelf, covered by other magazines like _Witch Weekly_ which he didn't pickup.

_If_ Ginny was preaching her message he doubted it would be in there.

With his bag of newspapers in hand he started slowly back towards the entrance to the alley, whilst thinking to himself where to go from here.

If she was preaching at all there was something of a problem. Her philosophy was something that had always been present, but here and now most people didn't believe in aliens by default and those who did were way underground or out away from the wizarding world.

There would also be the danger that she fell into Voldemort's clutches, their philosophies weren't exactly similar, though they weren't exactly the same either.

Of course it was while he was pondering to himself that he walked into people who were waiting in line to get through the entrance.

"Sorry 'bout that." He said as he stepped away from them. "Caught in thought."

"Nothing wrong with thinking friend. It's the lack of thinking that afflicts most people." One of them said.

"That's what I've always thought, though I tend to think far to much, better at thinking than doing so people say." Said the other man he'd walked into.

"Thinking about something important friend?" Asked the first man who'd spoken, as the second craned around to look up the queue.

"Life, the universe and everything." Harry replied.

"How philosophical, you don't hear a statement like that very often do you?" He said with a smile.

It was then that Harry realised that first he'd quoted something that hadn't written yet, and second the man's smile reminded him of something; then it was gone, flittered away in memory.

It probably wasn't important.

"What's going on? I didn't think there'd ever be a queue to get out of the alley." Harry said looking around, but the line was quickly spreading into a group of people, looking around and talking.

"Not sure friend, some of them 're saying there was a muggle hanging around trying to get in through the barrier."

Harry shrugged. "Maybe it's a parent of a muggle born or something."

"They usually get Tom to get them through so I'm told." Said the second man.

"How about we go have a drink, while they sort it out. They'll want to get all bureaucratic with them. How about you friend? Fancy a drink while we let the crowd thin?"

Harry looked ahead and shrugged nonchalantly. "Sure." It would also help to get to know some people within the wizarding world, whom he didn't share a future with, as he was sure he had never met these two men.

"So what's your name friend?"

Harry blanked for a moment, he hadn't actually thought about a name. "Harry James." He said holding out his hand. Any fictional elements were best kept close to truth, and Harry and James were both relatively common names. A little odd as a surname…but it was easier.

"I'm Gideon." Said the first man.

"Fabian." He said shaking Harry's hand.

"Nice to meet you Harry."

Oh….Harry thought to himself. Of course he hadn't met these two before.

But he had met their sister.

He was also looking for their future niece.

But that was in the future, a future they'd never see.

Harry allowed himself to relax into the moment, sitting in a pub some ways into Diagon Alley, drinking a pint of beer with Gideon and Fabian Prewett.

They were funny, intelligent and interesting people.

Every so often when they were talking he could see something of their sister in them, and just briefly he'd seen something of Fred and George in the way they bounced conversationally against one another.

Though, Gideon was Harry thought, a year or so older than Fabian they seemed very close.

Harry stared into his pint and wondered how he had come to meet these two, friendly brilliant people.

People who wouldn't live to see the end of a war that was just spinning up, a war that would see them loose their lives.

"Morose thoughts?" Fabian's voice intruded into his staring into his pint.

"Very morose." He agreed.

"Feel like sharing? Or not, it's not often we encounter someone so chatty about the world, and 'life the universe and everything'." He said quoting Harry with a smile.

Harry wondered if intergalactic copyright police would drop down out of the sky and take him to court for using a phrase that wouldn't make its way into the collective consciousness for a good few years.

"Maybe, maybe…" Harry said eventually, deciding his moral and copyright questions did not lie within the not so murky depths of a beer glass, no matter how many philosophers and professional drinkers might say otherwise.

"I'll go and get us a bite to eat and you can tell us all about it?" Gideon stood from the table before Harry could say anything, Fabian just smiled good naturedly at him.

"So why all the questions about the world Harry? You sound like you've been a hermit, living in the mountains or something."

The idea amused Harry somewhat. "I've been away in the muggle world for a while."

"Now you're back." Harry wasn't sure if Fabian's statement was just that or a question, it didn't quite lack the upward inflection of a question, though it wasn't totally lacking in neutrality either.

It was somewhat confounding second guessing himself on what he should say.

"Something like that."

"We're curious we know." Gideon said with a smile and he took a bite out of his sandwich.

"Some say we're nosy." Fabian added.

"I like to think we're open to the wonders of the world." Gideon said as he swallowed a mouthful of beer.

"The only way to be in my books; keep an open mind and you won't have your world view split open when something truly amazing happens." Harry said as he finished his sandwich.

"Truly amazing Fabian, I like that Harry. As opposed to?" Gideon let the question hang.

"As opposed to just plain amazing." Harry paused. "When a muggle born comes into the wizarding world magic is amazing." Both Gideon and Fabian nodded. "But" Harry smiled. "something truly amazing is shatteringly different, challenging, truly amazing."

"Well…" Fabian started.

"That sounds interesting." Gideon finished.

Harry smiled and in affirmation.

"Well I think we should go and see if the queue has been resolved don't you think Gideon, Harry?" Fabian said as they finished their lunch.

The line of people had indeed thinned to almost nothing and as they approached the entrance back to the Leakey Cauldron Harry saw exactly what, or _who_ had most likely caused the back log of people.

"Ah" Harry muttered. "I'll see you too around?" Harry asked as they walked toward the entrance.

"Someone you know?"

"A muggle friend of a friend, I think it might be easier to give the Ministry officials a useful fiction, than a complicated truth." Harry replied enigmatically to Gideon.

"We're in the alley almost every Wednesday." Fabian shook his hand, as did Gideon.

Harry gripped both their hands and then shuffled off to the side of the short line of people.

Harry buttoned up his jacket and pulled down his hat so he was quite unrecognisable, then he muttered a few words to himself and hoped his accent would sound foreign enough.

"Good day sir." He said to the ministry official questioning the man who was sat on a stool, seemingly refusing to answer any of the Ministry official's questions.

"Yes?" The Ministry official regarded him.

"My name is Vilius Krull, my superiors" He flashed his relatively empty wallet quickly at the Ministry man. "made me aware of this problem, how you Britishers say 'muggle-born associate of ours." Harry spared only a vague look at the _Captain_ whom he knew from around UNIT though he hadn't specifically talked to yet.

"Your 'associate' was trying to enter Diagon Alley. He's refused to give us any information." The man puffed up his chest a bit. Harry wondered if he was having a heartattack, but realised he was just trying to appear taller than him. "I'll have to take him to the Ministry for charging."

"I don't think this is necessary. This could cause severe repercussions for my and your superiors." Harry really hoped his accent which was fluctuating between 'Bond-villian' and Viktor Krum was sounding convincing enough. Hopefully though, the bureaucrat wasn't going to ask _where_ he was from. And _who_ his superiors were. "Especially given our close associations recently." He added.

The Ministry man was paling quickly, he even took a step away from him.

"Of course not, of course not" He said quickly. "I would never, I mean…" Harry didn't smile but instead pushed his hands into his pocket feeling around for a suitable amount of money.

Drawing his hand out, carefully not to show anything he pressed his hand into the Ministry official's hand. "Something to apologise for the inconvenience our associate has caused you."

The man blustered some more, but pocketed the money in a practiced movement. "Of course, of course, nothing to worry about old chap, can't have a diplomatic incident over this small issue." He said suddenly far more chummy.

"Of course." Harry smiled and put a firm hand on Captain Yates' shoulder and dragged him up. "I shall take this underling at once, and we shall be of no further trouble to you and your citizens." Harry said his accent to him sounded really over the top, but the Ministry man seem to just want him away.

Once they were outside and a short way from the pub Harry let go of his grip on the Captain's shoulders as they walked down an alleyway.

He should have been angry that he'd been followed.

Scratch that, he _was_ angry that he'd been followed, the Brigadier had made a situation needlessly more complicated by sending the Captain along, who knew what the Ministry might have extracted out of him if he hadn't been there.

Though, he could see the Brigadier's reasoning; gathering information and the like.

However he was annoyed with himself that he hadn't realised he'd been followed, though he wasn't expecting it here and now, not a lot of people in this time period wanted him dead.

"Did you leave a vehicle around here Captain Yates?"

"You knew I followed you?" He asked looking around carefully.

"I deduced that. It wasn't the most intelligent thing to do Captain Yates to walk into that situation." Harry said carefully. Having a go at the Captain would achieve nothing.

He shook his head. "I…" He started and then stopped, probably realising that he probably shouldn't be telling the person he'd been ordered to follow that _he_ had been following him.

"You are so out of your depth that it surprises me that the Brigadier sent someone to follow me." Harry shook his head. "I'm sure you've brought something to get you back to HQ, want to save me a train ride and ring them up?"

"Ring?"

Harry sighed. "Radio."

"Having me followed was not the best idea Brigadier." Harry said as he walked into the room recently vacated by Captain Yates.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart silently regarded the younger man.

"I understand why you did it." Harry sat down into the chair opposite the Brigadier.

"You do, do you?" The Brigadier asked, his tone mostly neutral with a slight undercurrent of something.

Harry scratched the back of his head. "But following" He paused. "Trying to get one of your men in there" He paused again. "All you need to have done was ask. By following me and Captain Yates getting himself noticed as _not_ a wizard _I _had to get noticed."

The Brigadier remained silent watching him. Harry looked back at the Brigadier in thought. "Unless you didn't want to get into the wizarding world, not yet anyway." He sat up rubbing his chin. "What you actually ordered him to do was what I said initially _follow me_." Harry smiled at the Brigadier coolly. "Don't you trust me Brigadier?" Harry stood up. "Though why should you trust me, I appear from nowhere with some mad story about being a wizard and a time traveller, _who _would _ever_ come up with a story like that. It's not something you hear all the _time_." Harry said watching, trying to gauge the Brigadier's responses. Judith was better at reading people than he was.

"I trusted you Mr Potter when you arrived, your story was honest." The Brigadier said as Harry say down once more.

"After the incident at Oaks Field though, Captain Yates gave me an interesting report on your actions, towards me."

Harry kept his face neutral. Oaks Field was the hamlet that he'd been to with the Brigadier with the bodies and the Dark Mark and everything.

"And?" Harry prompted.

"His report states that he heard when you were 'assisting' me at the site that you were hypnotising me." The Brigadier paused and stared at him. "He said you sounded just like the Master."

Harry wondered if he should take that as a compliment, but he kept his face neutral. "And what are you asking me Brigadier?"

The Brigadier leaned forward in his chair. "Did you _hypnotise _me Mr Potter?"

"Yes." Harry said simply. "All you need to do was ask Brigadier." He smiled.

"And you didn't think it was _appropriate_ to tell me of this?" The Brigadier's voice rose up.

Harry shook his head as he sat back into his chair. "If I had, it would have been far more difficult to convince you to walk into that area, maybe impossible to do so. That spell seemed to have a cumulative effect, I hear people are still having trouble getting in there, the more you try to force your way in, knowing what's there the more it fights." Harry paused and added. "Just a theory, though that part." He explained calmly.

"And you didn't think to _tell me_ about this afterwards?" Asked the Brigadier and annoyed tone creeping into his voice.

"It slipped my mind. I'm sorry to have misplaced your trust Brigadier. We will still work together Brigadier, but in future I will inform you on matters of the mind." He rose from his chair. "I think I should find my own transport, I shouldn't be relying on your men to drive me around." Harry touched his hat. "Good day Brigadier."

As Harry grasped the door handle he heard the Brigadier mutter to himself. "You're worse than the Doctor." Harry allowed himself to smile.

--//

Harry wasn't sure how the Doctor had found out about his 'talk' with the Brigadier, but he'd popped his head into the lab he was using and suggested he'd take him to look for a vehicle.

The awkwardness had somewhat subsided as they drove away from UNIT in Bessie.

They had silently agreed not to talk about their future meeting, not their near future at least.

At least that was what Harry was gathered from their silence and the casual conversation they had been making.

"I keep thinking while I'm working, I'll just check it on the internet, or hack into the military's computer system, or see what the satellites are showing or…" Harry shook his head. "Now I know how you must feel, stuck here. It feels backward and it's only 30 or so years in my past."

The Doctor laughed heartily. "The range of crossing time streams Harry old chap, contending with what the environment throws at you."

"Yes, archaic technology and polyester becoming a fashionable fibre." Harry mock shuddered.

"Have you had any success in locating your terrorists?" The Doctor asked.

Harry shook his head. "I'm working on some ideas, once I can take them out into the field, I also need to find some places where the terrorists might disseminate their views and influence their target groups." He said carefully.

It was odd thinking about Ginny and her gang as terrorists, the word was one that the Brigadier had used, and he fancied it meant something different here than it did from his own time.

"Here we are." The Doctor said after, well Harry wasn't sure, an amount of time driving. He'd been sitting back listening to the wind noise and the sound of the engine, the Doctor too seemed content to drive on in silence.

Where they were was a rather unassuming factory, but earlier before they'd left the Doctor had said this was run by someone who was part of one of his clubs and held a veritable trove of vehicles.

It was at that, as Harry got out of Bessie and saw the doors open, it was.

There was the slight question of why he needed a car at all, he was a _wizard_ after all.

But he would leave apparating as a last resort. He was effectively operating here without any _wizarding_ back up, no one wizarding knew who he really was and where he was. If he buggered up an apparition and splinched himself, or worse, there's be no one around to call in to help. He wasn't worried about his ability at apparating. But the landscape of Britain had changed between now and 2003, where he'd left from. Buildings were demolished or new ones erected, and it all seemed like a potential minefield of problems.

As he looked around the cars on offer he hoped he had enough money, of which he had a substantial amount stashed in his pockets, owed mainly to his conversion at Gringotts.

"Doctor I can't." He said looking at the car he'd just fallen in love with. He'd been for a (rather long) test drive in it. Already something of a classic the Jaguar E-Type Mark 1 was a beautiful car and a wonder to drive. The Doctor had left him looking over the engine and returned a short while later, handing him the keys.

"Think of it as a belated birthday present." The Doctor smiled at him and pushed the keys into his hand.

--//

"Did you have to Doctor?" The Brigadier looked out the window to where Harry Potter had parked his car in the same garage as the Doctor's 'car'.

"Harry was perfectly willing to pay for it himself." The Doctor said. "Or is it that your attempt at following him failed Brigadier. Really did you think that Yates wouldn't get caught."

"One could always hope Doctor." The Brigadier said grumpily walking away from the window. They were in the Doctor's seldom-used office that was adjacent to his lab.

The Doctor produced two glasses and a bottle of a good Scotch from somewhere.

Not that Lethbridge-Stewart had ever known the Doctor to drink a bad Scotch, a bad anything indeed, the tea lady had soon come to know and be lectured on the best way to make a cup of tea.

"What _do_ you know about this Harry Potter chap Doctor, he is from the future, the _near_ future." Lethbridge-Stewart asked. He had held off pushing the Doctor for further information until he had…mellowed a little, and his recent sojourn away from Earth, which he didn't even pretend to understand and his day out with Potter seemed the perfect time to talk with him. The Doctor _could_ be reasonable on occasion.

The Doctor swirled the whiskey around in his glass. "I know something of Harry's early life. Nothing that could help you in any conflicts that will happen." The Doctor poured himself another glass. Lethbridge-Stewart had barely started on his. "In any case Brigadier, it's a bit late, you did sign him up with UNIT didn't you? Another advisor for UNIT? Hmm?"

"On your word Doctor." He said swallowing a mouthful of Scotch. "Maybe I was too hasty trusting _you_ and _Mr Potter_."

The Doctor looked at him across the desk. "What the devil are you accusing Harry of Brigadier?"

'Being a little bit _too_ like you Doctor' Lethbridge-Stewart thought to himself, but instead remained silent. Mr Potter was from the future, by his account he had been fighting someone who wanted to kill him for much of his teenage school life in addition now he ran an organisation in what sounded like an increasingly dangerous world.

Perhaps it was just Potter's caution, his flippancy and the cool way he dealt with his accusations and the manner in which he held himself that made him…concerned.

Lethbridge-Stewart accepted another glass of the fine whiskey from the Doctor.

It wasn't just the Doctor that Potter reminded him of. During the business with the Axons he'd spent some time with the Master, and it was Potter's manner that reminded him of the Master's.

Though the Doctor had said it wasn't likely Harry had met the Master however Potter was from his and the Doctor's future so…

"Blasted business this time travel rot Doctor." He said as his thoughts threatened to run away with themselves.

The Doctor chuckled. "Harry has rather nicely illustrated the complexities of transversing the timestreams, though with admirable constraint." The Doctor commented rather proudly as he swallowed another mouthful of his scotch.

--//

_Author Notes:_

_There will be more of Gideon and Fabian in future chapters._

_It's also possible that Harry will meet other members of the Order of the Phoenix who died during the first wizarding war. _

_Harry obviously will only be able to meet members who died prior to his birth, otherwise things will just become even more needlessly complicated. _

_Thanks for reading._


	21. Chapter 21

---

**Chapter 21**

"Of all the things Benton, it's imperative that no matter what, don't use my last name. From now on it's Harry James. Got that?"

Benton blinked at Harry and nodded as the man's voice took a cool edge. "Yes sir." Harry eyed him. "Harry."

"Better, observation is the key Benton, that's why I offered to take you along, so the Brigadier wouldn't make another mistake as he did sending Captain Yates to _spy_ on me."

Benton remained quiet, he had been briefed by the Brigadier about Captain Yates' mission to observe Harry Potter, and the Brigadier had said he had forced Potter's hand. But he wasn't one to question orders given to him by his superiors.

"So this is it?" Benton asked as he thrust his hands into his pockets, it looked like an old pub, he'd spent plenty of time inside pubs, both the dingy and the downright dangerous varieties.

"This is it." Harry said as he pushed open the door and led the Sergeant into a world of mystery, wonder and magic.

--//

Harry pushed himself up, spasms coursing through his body and felt something in his throat and coughed.

A wad of blood and phlegm landed on the cobbled streets before him.

It was then he realised that he was lying on said cobbled streets, he also blacked out.

--//

Someone was pushing him over.

"You're alright now young man…" Said what he guessed was a kindly female voice.

"Healer, he can be moved to St Mungo's." Said an urging male voice.

"No!" The voice said alarmed. "His injuries are too severe, he'd die in transit, bring me my bag."

Harry slipped back into unconsciousness for a moment, then someone was pressing a cup to his lips.

"Pain relief, calming draught and" Harry paused running his tongue around his mouth as he swallowed and cringed. "A touch of skelegrow?"

"You know your healing potions young man now…" She tapped her wand on his chest and his shirt ripped apart. "Oh my you're…" Her voice was lost as he fell into a potion induced blackness for several non-moments.

--//

He'd left Benton at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour with a hot chocolate to observe the Alley.

He'd objected, most likely Harry guessed because he had orders to keep Harry within sight. But he had other things to do, he wanted to meet Gideon and Fabian again as he was slowly beginning to tell them the gist of who he was looking for, or at least they were beginning to understand the sort of people he was looking for, and where said people might congregate to spread their ideas.

He was somewhat starting to worry that Ginny's group _hadn't_ begun to draw attention to themselves, which may have been their message was just mild enough that it didn't, or perhaps it had gathered the _wrong_ sort of attention, perhaps they'd got into the Ministry and started to change things subtly there, or maybe none of them were here, maybe Ginny was the only one who'd got through, maybe she was dead.

All were possibilities, but he needed to make sure either way, that not just the people had come through or not, but that their ideas from the future didn't disrupt the time stream.

He'd arrived deliberately early with Benton, but Benton had been rather willing to sit and observe, maybe it was the stern tone he'd taken with the Sergeant Harry pondered to himself. Though more likely the Brigadier the Brigadier had ordered him to collect as much information as possible.

That said he Benton was personable enough and Harry'd spent enough time with the Sergeant since he'd arrived in the past to know Benton wouldn't wander too far off and get himself in trouble, snooping and whatever.

He got _himself_ into enough trouble when he went snooping and whatever, he didn't need to concern his thoughts with other people who went off getting into trouble on their own, though at least Benton would be able to look after himself should something bad befall him, Voldemort was, after all plotting somewhere in the background or perhaps in the foreground and everywhere in between.

Harry looked around him with a smile and a sense of disbelief, despite knowing vaguely _when_ he was coming there had been a distinct lack of knowledge about the bigger details. He knew Voldemort came to power _around this time_, that certain events would happen, certain people would die (and some would survive) and other things like that. But the history books were somewhat lacking, they dealt with his birth and Voldemort's defeat, some touched on his rise to power. But there wasn't 'A History in detail of the Wizarding War against Voldemort' (though Harry thought ruefully if it existed it'd be called the 'war against He-who-must-not-be-named'). There were none that dealt with this period in any exacting detail, and anyone he might ask was dead or less than likely to speak with him.

In the midst of his ponderings he found himself outside a building that he was sure would one day become Weasleys' Wizard Weezes. But was at the moment divided into several smaller shops.

On a narrow door read _Muggle-Wizard Orientation _– Open Early until Late.

It made Harry raise an eyebrow at the door. He'd never heard of anything like this before.

Hermione had once mentioned to him the lack of "services to assist non-wizard born children", he couldn't resist going in and having a look.

Harry exited around 20 minutes later, his pockets stuffed with pamphlets and contact information for his "muggle friend and her parents", there were a dedicated set of wizards there to help integrate muggles into wizarding society, along with information and other helpful things. Harry paused and looked back and wondered where a place like this was in his own time. As he turned away from the shop it happened.

Harry fancied in the second between when it happened and when he was knocked unconscious that he felt it. The explosion wave that expanded out as the building exploded.

It windows shattered outwards, followed by flame and of course sound.

Not just the sound of the explosion, but the cries, shouts and screams. Though Harry thought that that was possibly his mind filling in the gaps in his memory.

--//

"Oh my you're…"

Harry clawed his way back from the blackness filled void of remembrance to the present of darkness and death.

"These scars they're…" The healer trailed off.

"Scars from previous battles, not this one." Harry ground out, his throat raw, not just from the potions but the noxious stench around him of bodies seemingly in a quickened state of decomposition and others in the throws of a magically enhanced path of death.

Harry tried to sit up and winced feeling a familiar pain. "How many ribs?" He asked, the question seemingly shocking the healer out of her stupor.

She tapped her wand gently on his chest muttering to herself. "There was an incantation within the explosions Aurors are looking now, you were hit by the same substance as those poor souls." She said calmly. "Your ribs cracked and will take longer than normally to heal." She continued almost clinically.

"Do they know what it was?" Harry asked calmly, but he really wanted to ask 'has anyone claimed responsibility for it?'

The healer glanced up, Harry followed her gaze and realised it wasn't just the situation that was making the alley way a dark place. Above them was a skull with a snake oozing out of it.

"It's begun." Harry whispered to himself, the Healer was concentrating on mixing up some compounds in a small mortar and pestle.

"Harry, you alright mate?" Harry looked backwards to see Benton squatting down, a concerned look briefly flashing over his face, one hand within his jacket pocket. Harry made eye contact with him and shook his head subtly.

"Benton, just a little bit of an injury-" Then he swore as the healer slapped a poultice onto his damaged rib area.

"The medication needed to be applied with some force to penetrate the spell damaged areas Mr…"

"James. Harry James. Fancy a date?" He said as he swore and drew in another ragged breath as the healer massaged the poultice into his ribs once more.

The healer smiled and reached into her bag again taking a bandage and began to wrap it around his ribs. "If I didn't have a partner Mr James you might have a chance." She said as she finished tieing the bandage and stood up. "I imagine I could lie in bed with you, just counting all your scars." She smiled quickly and was away.

"Can you stand?" Benton asked quietly, still looking around like a hawk.

"This isn't the first time I'm had my ribs broken Benton." Harry said as he pulled his relatively intact jacket around his ripped shirt. Benton offered him a hand up. Harry hissed as he stood up and looked around at the people screaming and shouting, and those decaying before his eyes on the ground.

"Come on." Harry said as he hunched over slightly and guided Benton out of the alley.

--//

Harry thought he was going to be okay, as they drove at speed back to UNIT HQ, he thought he'd managed to escape from the explosion relatively unharmed, forgetting his ribs for a second of course.

Then he started to feel a cough, or possibly a sneeze coming on. Then he did cough, and tasted blood in his mouth and he coughed again, this time spraying blood against the windscreen of the Land Rover.

"Benton, I think you're going to need to…"

Harry didn't exactly remember what happened after that, though he had flashes of memory of a field and quite possibily a helicopter.

"…You're going to be alright old chap…" Said the Doctor's voice as his face swam into view against a soundtrack of rotor blades.

--//

Lethbridge-Stewart stared through the glass windows separating him from the medical bay in his HQ. The Doctor had ordered out all the doctors and had **told** him firmly that _he_ would be seeing to Harry Potter's health. Then he'd retrieved an old bag from his TARDIS and some contraptions, before settling with a stethoscope and some other bits of random technology.

Lethbridge-Stewart turned around and walked down the short corridor to where Benton was.

The Doctor had also ordered Benton into quarantine "Just a precaution old chap…" He'd said to Benton as he'd hurried him into the room. Benton would need to remain in there for at least 48 hours until all the tests had been completed.

Benton came to attention as Lethbridge-Stewart approached the glass, he pushed the communication button, activating it between them. "At ease Benton."

"Sir. Is Harry...?" Benton trailed off.

"The Doctor's with him now Benton." He paused. "Is there anything you need Sergeant?" Lethbridge-Stewart asked after a moment.

"Just when I'm going to be out of here, sir."

Lethbridge-Stewart smiled softly. "When the tests clear you Benton, just a precaution, but if the Doctor's concerned…" Lethbridge-Stewart paused once more, he had never seen the Doctor seem so worried about someone.

"Sir."

--//

Harry opined his eyes again, he'd had the feeling that he hadn't been unconscious per se, but more that closing his eyes gave him some semblance of feeling as though he was, though couldn't quite get there.

"Harry old boy, how are you feeling?"

"Like I've just fought a kraken and lost." Harry tried to say but coughed several times. The Doctor passed him a tissue.

"I've removed the toxin that was within your lungs, I must say your ribs were healed remarkably well, considering the tissue damage."

"Magic." Harry croaked.

"Yes well…" The Doctor said uncomfortably. "I should let you get some rest and report to the Brigadier."

"Can't…" Harry tried as the Doctor rose.

"I'm sorry?" The Doctor looked down at him.

"I feel like I need to, haven't, just been pretending…keeping my eyes closed. I was awake while you were doing whatever it was."

The Doctor frowned slightly thinking. "I'll just give the Brigadier a quick report and sort out Benton."

"Is Benton alright?"

"Just worry about yourself Harry, and he's fine." The Doctor said with a slight smile.

The Doctor returned after an amount of time, he wasn't sure how long. Harry felt like he needed to move, but had no energy to do so, he wanted to sleep, to rest but every time he tried he felt something tugging at him, pulling him back to consciousness.

"…something in the toxin, it appears to keep you awake to prolong the suffering." The Doctor was explaining to him with some disgust as he looked as a sealed test tube of 'stuff' the Doctor had extracted from him.

"Couldn't you…give me something to knock me out?" Harry asked coughing slightly.

The Doctor shook his head, the toxins within your body and the particulars of the…healing performed on you would cause interactions. Something best avoided in your current state."

In his current state he could feel the extreme exhaustion clawing at him like a dragon pawing its next meal.

He so desperately wished for sleep, for rest but knew it felt like it was just out of reach, like a mirage of an oasis on Hypero as the Doctor would say, will say, did say…Harry blinked.

"Shall I tell you a story Harry?"

Harry tried to say something but words clawed in his throat, the Doctor simple passed him a water bottle with a straw in, the water felt both refreshing and icy cold, like spikes rushing down his throat, but nonetheless refreshing.

"My old teacher, a hermit who lived up the mountain near the house where I lived when I was a boy, he once told me about a time he tripped whilst out collecting fire wood…" The Doctor began, reminiscing.

Harry drifted on the Doctor's words, not quite unconscious but just drifting. He could no longer even pretend to keep his eyes closed, they felt like they _needed_ to be open, or that he _couldn't _close them.

Through the Doctor's tales he felt like he could smell the flowers on the mountain, see the silver trees with the flutterwings flying between them. Feel the orange sun beating down on his face and the dew settling on the lakes whilst Pazithi Gallifreya hung in the sky on the edge of night and day.

"Venusians are lovely chaps really…" The Doctor was saying, he was playing around with his stephoscope again, seemingly looking into the middle distance thinking randomly to himself as he spoke.

"There was once this song they used to sing, more of a lullaby, I think." The Doctor cleared his throat. "Kokleda partha mennin clatch. Aroon aroon aroon. Kokleda sheena teerinatch. Aroon aroon aroon..." The Doctor continued to sing the lullaby as he twisted the stethoscope casually.

It only occurred to Harry as he was drifting towards unconsciousness what the Doctor was doing. He muttered as he drifted off "Close your eyes my darlings, well three of them at least…"

"Rest Harry." The Doctor patting Harry's shoulder as rose from his bedside once he knew Harry was unconscious and resting.

It was fortunate for Sergeant Benton that he had not taken such a direct impact from the explosion as Harry had, the Doctor told him as much.

"So I can go Doctor?"

"24 hours Sergeant, best be safe." The Doctor said with a smile despite the Sergeant's fallen expression at the news.

"What about Harry Doctor, is he alight?"

"Hopefully Sergeant. He's resting and I've extracted the toxic substance." He said patting his pocket. He wanted to analyse the substance and make his own notes. Then destroy it, the humans had enough toxic substances without given them any more ideas, especially ones that could be created from elements on their own planet.

--//

The Doctor seemed to have just been finishing something in his lab when Lethbridge-Stewart walked in.

"Just a moment Brigadier." The Doctor called as he walked into his TARDIS, at one point Lethbridge-Stewart thought every time the Doctor disappeared into that blasted thing he'd disappear and leave them all in the lurch. But now looking back he considered that he was slightly foolish in trying to hide away the Doctor's key from him. _Not_ that he would ever admit that to the Doctor, Lethbridge-Stewart was sure he'd spend a lot of time gloating at his expense.

Best keep the Doctor in the dark on such things.

"All sorted out Doctor? Mr Potter appears to be resting."

"Of course Brigadier, a light form of hypnosis to push Harry into unconsciousness to allow both his mind and his body to rest and rid themselves of the toxic substance that permeated his tissues and consciousness." The Doctor said casually as he hung up his lab coat and pulled on his 'regular' jacket.

"Doctor about that substance I…" Lethbridge-Stewart began.

But the Doctor cut him off. "Isolated and destroyed Brigadier, you currently have enough poisons on this planet without new and creative ways to inflict pain upon people."

Lethbridge-Stewart couldn't shake the feeling that when the Doctor said _you_ he meant both himself and the human race as a whole. Sometimes the Doctor managed to give gravity to almost any word.

"I've locked down the quarantine wing, just in case Ms Grant goes wandering, it wouldn't do to have her meet Mr Potter whilst he's under the weather and not able to explain himself" Lethbridge-Stewart said. "Doctor?" He added the Doctor seemed to be in another place, or likely thinking of another planet.

"Yes, Brigadier quite right. Good thinking." The Doctor said offhandedly.

--//

The first thing he felt when he awoke was a all encompassing need for the loo. Removing the IV drip in his arm he slipped out of bed.

That about half way to the toilet he realised how tender his ribs were, that he was in a hospital gown and that he wasn't dead.

Having relieved himself he could enjoy the feeling of not being dead.

After making use of the shower he'd noticed his clothes neatly folded in the corner of the bathroom facility along with his wand and the other things that he must of had in his pockets when he'd been struck down.

He was informed by the Private outside the door that the Doctor had ordered him to send Harry off for food before doing anything else. Now his stomach full he was heading to see the Doctor.

Harry peered around the corned of the Doctor's lab, he could see the Doctor working on what appeared to be his dematerialisation circuit for the TARDIS, but couldn't see any sign of Jo.

"Doctor?" Harry called in a low voice.

The Doctor looked over a grinning. "Harry, good to see you up and about!"

"Is Jo around?" Harry asked as he walked in, careful not to shift around from side to side too much. Whilst showering he'd taken note of the large bruises that formed a patchwork of black and blue across much of his torso.

"No, sorting out UNIT's technology store supplier. I ordered 10 high capacity transformers and they guaranteed me that they would arrive today, how the Brigadier expects me to do my job with sub-standard equipment…" The Doctor shook his head as he rested the soldering iron on its holder. "Now Harry how are you doing?"

"After you hypnotised me?" Harry asked raising his eyebrow at the Doctor.

"Ah, you realised that was what I was doing." The Doctor said as he scratched the back of his neck and had the decency to look slightly uncomfortable.

Harry smiled and patted the Doctor on the shoulder. "Thanks, I don't know what would have happened if I continued to be in that state. How long have I been out?"

"Oh…120 hours give or take. It was a deep healing sleep you were in Harry. You shouldn't feel too many ill effects of the rest in bed, you removed the intravenous drip I see, my own concoction, the Brigadier wants to roll it out as it were for all the troops." The Doctor said with a mixture of pride and worry.

"You're worried he'd abuse it?" Harry tried.

"Hmm?

"You sound concerned Doctor, you're worried that the Brigadier would exploit it."

"The nature of the military Harry is to exploit advantages and weaknesses, while military intelligence may by an oxymoron, there are some that posses a level of intelligence that makes them dangerous for themselves and others."

"The Brigadier is in charge of a para-miltary organisation, fighting things beyond the government, outsider the normal military's purview, surely some assistance wouldn't go astray?" Harry asked as he walked around the Doctor's lab, shifting carefully on his feet, he still felt like he'd gone toe to toe with an Ogron and lost, badly.

The Doctor made an irritated non-noise of not-really agreement. "I'll have a word with him Harry."

--//

Harry eased himself out of the E-Type having been requested to attend to this site by the Brigadier, he sucked in a breath of air through gritted teeth, his injuries were healing well, but they were still there and combined with the freezing air in the lead up to Christmas it wasn't exactly the nicest feeling.

"Sir. The Brigadier's over here."

"Thanks Sergeant." Harry said to Benton, who still wouldn't stop calling him sir.

Harry didn't mind that he'd been summoned, he as, slowly working on a method of locating Ginny and her cohorts that came through the rift, but working on things was hard going.

He just wished Moore's Law would hurry up.

"_You call this some little prank?"_ Harry heard the Brigadier roaring in his angry military voice long before he reached the middle of the village.

And…oh…was all Harry thought to himself for a moment or two.

"Pranks indeed." Harry said to himself, looking around at the sights around him.

He really was suspecting that all the things mentioned in passing about the Wizarding War were really far, far more brutish and visceral than anyone really wanted anyone to know about.

"Potter." The Brigadier walked up to him, but had the good graces and security minding not to shout his name at the same level as he had been at the wizarding being handcuffed by some UNIT soldiers. "He was carrying this." The Brigadier handed him a wand, he carefully examined it and slid it into a pocket.

"How'd you find out about…" Harry trailed off, ignoring the slight noise of the beings around him. "this." He finished after failing to come up with a better word it.

"The local publican called the police describing 'men with sticks'. Potter what the devil is this…they're…"

"Goats." Harry finished succinctly.

"Over here." The Brigadier lead him to where a stretcher was covered with a sheet. "We found that man waving his _wand_ over this." He pulled the sheet back. "He said he was _trying_ to help."

Harry swallowed and cringed. "A very bad attempt at undoing transfiguration, looks like the poor woman didn't survive the process." Harry pulled the sheet back over the body. "Very nasty." Harry looked back to the Brigadier who was still frowning. "How many?" Harry asked as he studied the Brigadier's frown.

"15."

Harry swore and marched over to the man who seemed now that he approached was younger than himself, he was still being held by the UNIT troops. "What department are you from?"

"What department, what muggle?" He said incredulously.

"Department in the Ministry of Magic you incompetent murdering idiot!" Harry spat.

"Murder I…I…"

"You think improper transfiguration has an undo spell? You probably did more to further their agenda than they did, unless…" Harry trailed off watching the young man who looked like he was ready to break into tears.

"I…I…" He made a face of concentration.

"Stupefy." Harry said quickly drawing his wand, the UNIT troops to their credit didn't jump at the sight of a spell. The man collapsed. "Your men can take him away Brigadier, no doubt he'll escape, but it should serve as warning." Harry said as he rubbed his chest wincing, drawing his wand so quickly had pulled at the muscles he knew were still healing.

"Now what Potter?"

"Just a moment Brigadier." Harry said leaning over breathing in a breath of cold air.

"Potter are you alright?" Lethbridge-Stewart asked with concern.

"Just fine Brigadier. Just not indestructible." Harry stood back up straight. "Round up the goats, somewhere preferably where I can sit down and show me to one of the bodies. I need to know I can do this without making the mistakes of that blasted idiot."

Harry warmed his hands on the mug that Sergeant Benton had brought him.

"How many left now Benton?" Harry took a biscuit from the packet that Benton offered. UNIT did make a good cup of tea, where they made it he wasn't sure.

Benton consulted his clipboard. "Another 8 and then just the bodies, the Brigadier said you'd deal with those."

Harry nodded. "They can wait. The Brig's sorting out the survivors I saw, they'll need some help dealing with it."

After some silence Benton spoke up. "What's it like Sir? This transfiguration thing?"

"Thought you'd be scared off this sort of thing after our adventure?" Harry asked as he took a sip of the hot tea, wincing slightly at its heat compared to the rest of the room.

Benton shrugged. "Nothing scares you much after you've been with UNIT for a while sir. It's part of the adventure isn't it?"

Harry wondered if Benton wanted an answer. _He_ enjoyed the adventure, though seeing the past in all its visceral bloodiness was something he'd considered, but hadn't quite counted on experiencing it first hand so much.

So much for a simple drop into the past and grab Ginny and her brigade and then return to his life.

The universe wasn't that simple.

Simple, that was what he thought this would be a simple operation, not even an operation a sticky plaster, that was what this was meant to be.

He'd sought out a few nice gifts for those that he dealt with in UNIT regularly, plus an anonymous one for Jo Grant. It _should_ have been simple enough to sneak into the common room and leave them under the tree while people were milling about during the UNIT Christmas Party.

"Okay everyone get together lets have another photo." Jo's voice floated across the room.

"Really Ms Grant, do I _have_ to remind you UNIT is a secret intelligence taskforce."

"Come on Brigadier, don't you want some memories to put in all those photo frames you've got on your desk?" Jo asked sweetly. Harry hoped he was hiding far enough around the back of the Christmas tree that no one saw him.

"I have plenty of photos on my desk I'll have you know Ms Grant."

"Of old war buddies and photos from your training Brigadier?" Jo teased. "You need some new photos in there."

"Come on Brigadier, gather around and let Jo have her photo." Harry could tell the Doctor said this with a smile and, quite likely a drink in his hand.

"No alien invasions on the horizon then Doc?"

"My dear Captain Yates, I am not a looking glass of terrestrial incursions."

"Jodrell Bank's report this morning was clear of anything vaguely regarding aliens, asteroids, meteorites or any other form of incursion Captain Yates." Said the cool voice of Corporal Carol Bell, someone whom he'd tried flirting with and who had told him in very coldly that if he tried anything with her she would put his knackers in a vice and squash them to paté.

"Thanks Carol, at least I can spend time with my uncle without being called away for a Christmas invasion." Jo said.

"Are we ready Ms Grant or must we stay in position for all of Christmas?" The Brigadier said annoyed.

"I've already taken my photos Brigadier, but another few won't hurt." Harry shook his head as he heard her quickly shoot off several more shots and decided that if he ran for the door he'd be able to make it out of the room without anyone wondering why he'd been hiding behind the Christmas tree.

Harry shut the door to the UNIT common room with a sigh, no one had stopped him, whether anyone had seen him was another thing, but no one was following him.

So it made him jump when someone patted him on the shoulder.

"Something of a risk Harry, old chap being in there with everyone?"

"Doctor." Harry said as he took a moment to gather a breath. "I was careful." Then he blinked and looked up at the ceiling for a moment. "Oh."

"Oh?" The Doctor looked at him.

"I just realised I became part of a self-fulfilling prophecy while being worried about _not_ causing a paradox within my own timeline. I should have just posted those presents here."

"I was wondering Harry, if you might…" The Doctor started and then trailed off. "If you would like to spend some time in my house, over the Christmas break, I'm sure you heard Corporal Bell before."

"No Christmas invasion, on the horizon?" Harry asked.

The Doctor regarded him with an expression of curiosity. "Don't you know Harry?" The Doctor pondered as the door opened disgorging some UNIT personnel.

"Perhaps a turn around the grounds?" Harry gestured the exterior door leading out into the cool December night.

The change of location was helping his mental block of how to find Ginny and her group, plus there were all the gadgets the Doctor had spread around his workshop.

The Doctor was mucking around with Bessie, not that he would tell him what it was he was doing. Something to do with solenoids.

He hadn't actually seriously thought about taking the Doctor up on his offer, the reasons he had come here, to the past were still weighing upon him and worrying him so.

The alterations to the future and web of time Ginny and her fanatics could cause with their disruptions and perversions of the culture, here and now was something he couldn't ignore.

Nothing _noticeable_ had come to light _yet_, but they were here, and they didn't come all this way for nothing.

But the battlefield was constantly changing, the Brigadier had informed him that he wanted Harry to accompany him to see the Prime Minister when he returned to UNIT to brief the Prime Minister on the current crisis. A crisis which Harry knew wasn't going to end any time soon and would get a lot worse, how much so he wasn't even sure.

--//

She walked calmly through the corridors, and carefully opened the heavy oak doors with one hand. He was waiting there, as he always did.

"You took your time." He said as she stood firm and straight before him, the object in her hand. She didn't respond to his statement, he didn't need to know.

"I know you've been cultivating your contacts." He said calmly looking up and meeting her gaze, she felt a chill run down her spine. "Well?"

She shuffled forward and placed the box on his desk before shuffling back to her position. "There was an explosion at Diagon Alley, it destroyed several buildings, it wasn't damaged though."

"No, it wouldn't be." He said lifting the lid on the box. Then closing it once more. "The Death Eater's little act of vandalism was rather fortuitous I think. Not something you claim to know about?" He let to question hang.

"I…I said I didn't know much about…" She stuttered.

"You know if you continue on these unauthorized ventures, further applications will be necessary."

"Yes, sir, I know." She stood up straighter.

"Very well." He leaned back into his chair. "You can go. You have the rest of the week to organise whatever you need, all the facilities are open to you."

She stood a moment longer, a smile creeping to her face. "Thank you sir." She said and turned to leave.

Just as she reached the door he spoke again as he lifted the lid once more on the box. "Very good work Ms Weasley."

--//

_Author notes:_

_Very sorry about the length of time this chapter took to get out here. Various things have got in the way of me sitting down and finishing this chapter (I started it before Christmas)._

_I will really try and get the next chapter completed in a shorter time frame. _


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22**

Setting things up _here_ and _now_ wasn't a hippogriff in a potions lab affair.

It was like wizarding chess, the pieces needed to fall in an exacting order to have their required affect on the surrounding environment.

She hadn't planned for this exact era, she knew she needed to come back far enough to influence things.

But where she had found herself; with some influence was a very good place to be.

There also wasn't any possibility of any deviants like Harry Potter getting in the way. Only people from her family and his past, but they had their own problems that would be brewing sometime soon. But none of it would happen for several years yet, she was relatively sure of that. The war was a violent yet subtle affair that was what she'd known of at least.

Also her Patron informed her not to seek out any family, he said the results would be amusing, for observers.

She didn't doubt that it would not be amusing or remotely for her, it was the way Patron smiled when he told her this.

She had vague memories of how she came to be under her Patron's influence.

It had been some time since she had arrived here and now, it had, she thought, something of a miracle of magic to have arrived here and now. A triumph of magic her Patron had called it.

She didn't remember much after she first arrived, the transference through time had been rough and violent. If it wasn't for her Patron's assistance she wouldn't have found the rest of her sect.

She remembered flashes of light and dark, and exhaustion when she arrived here.

And also a sensation of water…or perhaps it was drowning, her Patron said it was the result of the transference, and while he did have reason to lie, he also had means to discover the truth from her.

_Flashback…_

"I know you're a time traveller, and a magic user Ms Weasley, that much I know, very simple things to discover with the right tools." He was shrouded in almost darkness, she hadn't been moved, at least she was almost sure she hadn't been moved. She had lost count of the days and nights, the blaring lights and the nightmares she had of drowning. Something she put down to half remembered memories of Hogwarts when she woke up shaking on the ground of this light and dark room.

"But I want to know _more,_ more details of why you came here and now."

"I…I can tell you whatever you need to know Mr…" She said hoarsely.

"Sir." He supplied.

"Sir…." She said breathing in deeply. Something was placed over her head and everything went dark and painful.

Awareness slowly ebbed into her psyche followed by consciousness. She was vaguely aware that she was sitting in front of a table. That she was no longer secured to the table and…she had a vague memory of swimming, or possibly drowning, but she couldn't think where the memory had come from.

_Present…_

Her Patron's offer had been interesting, not that she'd had any option, the alternatives were less than palatable. The memory of her Patron's 'mind analysis machine' still shook her to her soul.

Despite her Patron's hard-line, she appreciated his assistance, it was of benefit to have a base of operations and someone who understood what she was doing here.

A little work she had to perform in addition to her own plans was of little consequence.

Ginny allowed herself to smile slightly, she even enjoyed the havok she'd been _required_ to cause.

It felt especially satisfying arranging "accidents" for those who _violently_ disagreed with her, however they did cast their aspersions first, she was just defending her honour…

--//

They'd hugged one another, shocked and relieved to find one and another alive.

"Friend, we were concerned." Said Gideon.

"More like totally worried Gideon." Said Fabian.

He'd found them in the Leaky Cauldron, but had suggested they continue their conversation elsewhere.

"Friend Harry, how are you, you were caught in the explosion?" Fabian asked him, worried.

Harry nodded.

"And you didn't die?" Fabian asked, Gideon punched him on the arm.

"I know about the poison, I barely survived." Harry said carefully, he didn't want the brothers to get any ideas about the exact method that allowed him to survive. "And you? I'm sorry I haven't contacted you, but I don't have-" He was cut off.

"No matter friend. You're lucky to survive is what my brother was trying to say." Gideon said. Fabian just shook his head with a smile.

"Very lucky, and you two also."

"Not even close, an impromptu visit to our sister and nephews, have we mentioned her?" Gideon asked Harry as Harry took a long sip from his pint.

Harry fought to keep a neutral though intrigued expression on his face as he swallowed a mouthful of liquid.

"I think you said something about it, married to Weasl, Weezy…?" Harry tried casually.

"Weasley. He makes her happy and that's all that matters." Fabian said. As Harry and Gideon nodded.

"We've been keeping our ears to the ground listening for the beating footsteps of a dragon stampede." Harry raised an eyebrow at Fabian's comment.

"The concern you raised for what did you call them…" Gideon said leaning forward slightly and dropping his voice down slighty.

"Cultural terrorists." Harry said as he recalled a previous conversation. It was as good as any description of Ginny's gang.

"And they're not part of the recent attacks?" Fabian asked.

Harry shook his head, at least he was relatively sure that they wouldn't do anything quite _that_ noticeable. It wasn't really in line with their twisted ideas, though that said time travelling to alter the philosophical and cultural psyche of the wizarding world _while_ it was going through the shock and awe of Voldemort's impending war wasn't something he would have believed half a dozen years ago.

Gideon shifted and removed a crumpled piece of parchment and unrolled it, using their now empty larger glasses to keep it open.

Peering down at it Harry regarded the addresses and quizzically raised an eyebrow at the brother.

"There are, friend Harry, some bars associates of ours like to attend." Gideon said casually.

"Revolutionaries, delinquents, liberationists, deviants, believers. All exes of your Gideon." Fabian deadpanned, Gideon gave him a withering look.

"These are the sorts of people your _terrorist_ is looking for? They're not the people who go about destroying shops in the alley or transfiguring villages."

Harry blinked, he was pretty sure UNIT and the Ministry would have made sure the things he'd seen before Christmas hadn't gotten out into the public knowledge. "How'd you know about the transfiguration business?"

"Or more to the point friend Harry, how do _you_ know about it?" Gideon asked.

"Your mysterious friends?" Fabian asked curiously implying he knew more than what he was asking.

Harry leaned back into his chair with an air of indifference. "What a curious line of inquiry, do you _really_ expect me to answer any of your questions?"

Gideon and Fabian looked to each other and then turned back at him grinning. "Nope. We just thought we'd challenge you to see if the man of mystery would drop down and explain all." Fabian acknowledged.

"We don't get to meet interesting mysterious people too often." Gideon said.

Harry pulled the parchment up off the table. There were a rather large amount of clubs, pubs and whatever else around London and its outskirts, nothing too far out into the country, but far too many to begin to search.

But once he got his scanning equipment sorted out this would allow him to narrow his field of endeavours.

"And I don't get to meet people such as yourselves too frequently either." Harry said truthfully.

It was beginning to get dark when he left the pub after spending several hours chatting again with the brothers. He really enjoyed chatting with them, which made it all the more hard that in the back of his mind he knew what would ultimately happen to them.

Why he had to befriend these two guys…he sighed silently to himself as he unlocked his Jag.

Harry looked up at the rear-vision mirror looking himself in the eye.

Voldemort was already out there, according to the brothers, "Lord Voldemort" had taken credit for the explosion in the alley.

Though aside from the name and the claim there was yet much known of him according to Gideon.

He wasn't going to try and stop Voldermort, he had history with him, literally. Future history to Riddle and past history for him. Nor would he interfere with history's course with regards to the Prewett brothers.

"That's the cost for travelling into history, you sometimes know the outcomes." Harry said to himself in a tone the Doctor might use. "And those outcomes might not be pleasant." He finished to himself. Shaking his head free of morose thoughts he started the engine.

The sound of the engine and the power of it as he slipped it into gear made him smile, distracting him from his solemn thoughts.

--//

"This is excellent Brigadier, most excellent." Harry said as he looked around the practically empty room that still held a few large computer reel machines, or whatever they were. They were beyond retro in Harry's opinion.

"Most the dangerous gubbins left over from that WOTAN debacle were cleared out after the incident, the tower's been used by a few communications companies." The Brigadier paused using his swagger stick to push aside some piece of paper that littered a table. "But government's remained in control of most of these areas."

"Thank you Brigadier, this should help immensely." Harry said looking around.

Lethbridge-Stewart smiled sharply. "Anything to help Mr Potter and your role in assisting with the population of the village was greatly appreciated."

"Even though everyone involved has signed the official secrets act?" Harry asked.

The Brigadier didn't say anything. "I'll get you sorted out with an access card so you can get up here when you need to Mr Potter." With that the Brigadier left him to the room.

The tower had some immense technology, some of which was too integrated to be easily removed.

Certainly the large transmitting arrays hadn't been removed _yet_.

The Doctor had only ever talked about what happened with WOTAN and Professor Brett in passing. But the files Harry had looked over when he'd asked the Brigadier about it had been quite detailed, it seemed the Doctor had assisted a Sir Charles Summer of the Royal Scientific Club.

It seemed like a good idea too, they were trying to create the Internet a few years early. It was a pity it wasn't around now, it would've been usefully, except for the whole megalomaniac mind controlling artificial intelligence. That was something of a 'user interface obstacle', he thought to himself with a smirk. Plus no mouse and a typewriter interface, but WOTAN could talk and answer almost any question, which probably beat '' any time. Though he kept coming back to the mind-control and the War Machines, that's what you get when you end up with a artificial intelligence built in the 60s that goes onto build an army using people under mind control to build them.

"All set Mr Potter?" The Brigadier said as he stepped back into the room, breaking into Harry's pondering thought processes.

As with all good ideas this had some flaws.

Altering the transmitter to transmit and receive and in essence do a primitive scan of London was good in theory.

It was certainly better than his idea of kitting out his car with the equipment he'd so far constructed, while that was an idea for short range detection of magical time travellers, he'd calculated, with the Doctor's assistance that it would take him several months to canvass the whole of London and its surrounds.

_If_ he could get the post office tower systems worked out he'd be able to do a whole scan of central London in a much shorter period of time.

Though why had no one thought to include a wiring diagram for any of this? Harry despaired to himself as he pulled out another handful a cables.

This was what LPI was good at; division of labour, he did admit that he had found it somewhat enjoyable building his energy scanner back in 2003. But all this technology wasn't just retro, it was old, clunky and cumbersome.

"Small mercies." Harry said to himself leaning back carefully so he didn't touch any cables, he'd already been zapped several times today.

At least computers existed, at least he was in a time where the Doctor was around, UNIT was here to provide support.

Ginny and her group hopefully didn't have any of that, but they must have started to garner support and they were being cautious given the ripples hadn't started to crash assure to alert anyone to an interference in the culture here.

Though with the rapidly escalating incidents involving Voldemort it was possible her actions would get caught up in the flow. Though what worried him was how her ideologies might appeal to wizarding society, especially one _about to_ go through turmoil.

What he really missed was being able to talk about _all_ this to his friends, Hermione, Ioan, Judith, even Jack Harkness. People who knew everything (not quite Jack on that front), whom he didn't have to worry about the web of time (or the time stream as the Doctor here and now called it) or worry about revealing something that was relevant to the near future that may not affect the web of time, but may cause ripples that _he'd_ know about.

He'd considered penning a letter to Hermione and pulling a '_Back to the Future' _manoeuvre; write his letter and leave it with one of the banks that LPI had some funds with, with directions to give it to her after he'd departed.

He'd almost done it too, but he missed not just talking, but hers, Ioan and Judith's responses, their _conversations_. A letter would be a poor substitute for that, especially as he knew that there was no way for to respond.

He'd thought about sharing all this with someone in this time. The Brigadier and the Doctor were the two people who knew as much as they could, the Brigadier more so than the Doctor in some things. But not all, he couldn't tell anyone here everything he knew. Or didn't know as the case was with regards to the wizarding world.

Just the broad brush strokes in that regard, with some annoying fine points that were immutable.

Harry pulled himself forward determined to shake these thoughts from himself, then he leant on another live cable, swearing and he grabbed his hand away from it.

"I wish I could just get back to killing the bad guys." He said to himself and then let out a sigh.

--//

It had taken close to 3 months to get all the parts for his new and improved scanning system since the last time he'd hooked up his scanning equipment to the systems he'd jerry rigged in the Post Office tower. When he'd switched it on to test it his device had promptly exploded causing a minor fire and a medium sized explosion according to the Doctor when he diagnosed the level of concussion Harry had suffered being blown back by the force of the 'zap'.

Now he'd redesigned and used some higher grade parts, all paid for out of the UNIT's budget thankfully.

He'd chosen this day to do his full search for Ginny's group (and the minute traces of temporal energy left by their arrival) tonight because of what was happening and _where_ and who would be there.

In a few minutes, if everything was running to schedule Professor Horner would be opening the Devil's Hump. The Doctor and Jo would be there and Azal, last of the Dæmons would be released.

It would have been fascinating to be there Harry admitted to himself as he checked the oscilloscopes that were hooked to his equipment, checking and rechecking the time scanner was attuned to the correct frequencies. If he got it wrong, with this higher grade equipment there was a higher chance of an explosion, or an EMP that could wipe out most of London.

Though there was a very low chance of that happening.

Probably.

There would also be another person at Devil's End whom he would like to meet.

But he could wait until UNIT captured him, he didn't want the Brigadier to start accusing him of working with said person.

He'd tell the Brigadier once they'd captured said individual.

Probably.

He'd certainly tell the Brigadier something so he could go and have a chat with said individual.

Then he'd tell the Brigadier, though only if he the Brigadier got curious.

Magister's future history with him was somewhat less complicated than the Doctor's. Though, he still had an unpleasant future to look forward to Harry thought to himself with a slight frown.

The large computer and data recorders were making some noise as the large reels of tape moved around, the Doctor had assured him it was perfectly normal.

It was still somewhat disconcerting that he needed a couple of cabinets of computers to process all this information.

Just in case the storage systems had some sort of failure there were some large printers also hooked up that would spit out all the information as it was processed.

Hopefully was the operational word of all this.

"Well, now or never." Harry said to himself, he'd given up thinking it was weird to talk to himself.

Then he activated the system.

It was rather anti-climactic, mainly because it took a few seconds to build the power.

There was a vague smell of ozone in the air, then the computers started making _a lot_ of noise, signifying he hoped that the scan was in progress, or he'd just thrown London backwards with a high powered EMP blast.

Which would have massive effects on the timeline and probably negate, or drastically alter his future, thus preventing him coming back in time and therefore create a paradox, which prevented it from happening.

Probably.

--//

The Doctor looked across the village at the ruins of the church, Jo was still dancing around the maypole, but he'd taken his leave to join the Brigadier at the pub for a pint.

The Master was under constant guard and would be taken somewhere secure under _maximum_ security.

"Do you think Mr Potter knew about this whole business Doctor?"

"Harry did seem to conveniently make his leave of HQ Brigadier, I think with his knowledge of your and my futures that he would know of certain events that might affect the time stream were he to participate in significant moments." The Doctor said casually.

The Brigadier drank some of his pint and tried to ignore the sight of the church, or the rubble that made up the church.

He wished that was the only thing that was going to cause headaches for him and UNIT, but there were far worse things happening around the country. Things like those that Mr Potter had assisted with.

There had been more than one hamlet that had mysteriously burned to the ground, a mass suicide in farming community and other suspicious, though not overtly "esoteric" occurring around the country.

No further events had forced him to call on Mr Potter's expertise, however, despite their success in capturing the Master today Lethbridge-Stewart was still doubtful that the esoteric events would cease it was more likely likely, that, like war it would only increase in veracity.

--//

_Author notes:_

_I will start by saying Ginny's Patron is __not__ the Master (or the Doctor). _

_The capture of the Master takes place during __The Dæmons__._


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

Harry leaned over the large trestle table he'd crammed into his lab, he'd laid out a large map of London, whilst tacked to the walls were the reams and reams of data the computer had churned out _before_ it had overheated.

He still had the magnetic tape reels in two large boxes underneath the table should he need to retrieve it again.

Error detection wasn't something he'd factored in, so much of the data was just errors, a result of him shoving together several varied bits of technology and forcing it to work together.

"If only mapping software existed." Harry mused to himself, but while the British Rocket Group and British Mars missions were still moving along nicely they didn't have anything close to the imaging of the Earth he was used to.

It wasn't _too_ difficult plotting on the map, though he'd needed the Doctor to give him a crash course in it, just to get him started.

It was quite fun, sitting down with the Doctor teaching him how to do this.

Running a red pencil through another line of data Harry was beginning to wonder if WOTAN had been such a bad thing. Sure it had wanted to take over the world with mind control and cumbersome 'war machines', but if it could have brought forward computer development a couple of years it would have been worth it.

Harry sighed and decided he needed a break.

"Why do you want to see the prisoner Mr Potter?"

"Would you believe me if I said I was curious?" Harry asked sipping the mug of tea the Brigadier had offered when he'd come into his office. Harry chanced a look up over the mug he was holding to the Brigadier who was staring at him, slightly suspiciously.

"No Mr Potter."

Harry exhaled. "Mag…" Harry paused for a moment. "The Master and I know each other."

"And that's how you could hypnotise me and me men." The Brigadier stated, it seemed inferred as a question to him.

Harry merely shrugged. "The Doctor doesn't know _yet_ in any case."

"And you're going to free him?" The Brigadier challenged.

Harry smiled. "My dear Brigadier, why do you think I would do something like that?"

Lethbridge-Stewart stared at the young man, who in one sentence had managed to sound uncannily like the Master.

"You're his…friend? I would assume you have some loyalty to him Mr Potter. I should also ask, why should I continue to trust you considering your alliance with a known criminal."

Potter raised an eyebrow at him, smiling as the Doctor did when the man knew more than he did and knew it. "Brigadier, I could have been there when you captured the Master, I could have stopped you, I didn't, I made sure I was well away and un-contactable." Potter said reasonably as though what he was saying was supposed to be obvious _just_ like when the Doctor sometimes spoke to him.

"You didn't want to be present?" Lethbridge-Stewart asked watching Potter. Potter didn't react, he just shrugged again noncommittally.

"And as far as trust, I am as trustworthy now as before Brigadier. I give you my word I will not assist the Master's escape from your care."

"But you still wish to see him, doesn't this jam up the time cables or something?"

"The Web of Time Brigadier, or the time stream if you want. And no, just as my meeting the Doctor does not affect things adversely meeting the Master will not, the Time Lords are used to these odd little meetings. Time travel's in their blood, so to speak." Potter said draining the mug of its contents and placing it on his desk.

Harry watched the Brigadier deliberate about something.

"And if I said no Mr Potter?"

"I'd just hypnotise the guards, make them forget and go have a chat with my friend before sneaking out and leaving them none the wiser." Harry said levelly before smiling. "That is after all Brigadier what you were thinking is it not?" He asked playfully. "If you said no, then I would take it that you have a good reason, or reason backed with doubts and I would leave it at that and return to my lab."

It was like talking with a slightly more respectful Doctor sometimes when speaking with Harry Potter.

It was satisfying to know that his suspicions about the man had been correct, even if the Doctor had thought it was unlikely.

The Master was dangerous, but was securely under guard on the outskirts of his HQ in a specially prepared holding area.

That was only until Geneva decided how to try him, then they insisted he would be placed in a facility of their choosing, somewhere secure _and_ outside his direct command.

For now though he was in charge of the Master including who was able to visit him; currently only the Doctor who seemed distinctly uncomfortable whenever he visited the Master.

Miss Grant has suggested that it was because the Master's incarceration reminded the Doctor that he was trapped on Earth.

The Master had tried to escape, but extra training and further security devices had ensured that wouldn't happen…again.

However, Mr Potter was still a valuable resource, despite who his friends were. The attacks involving his 'wizarding' brethren had not breached the public consciousness _yet_ but he had had communiqués from the Prime Minister's office requesting further information, it would only be so long before he was requested there to discuss the problem, which would go far smoother if Mr Potter were along as his associate.

"Very well Mr Potter, I will contact you in your lab when it has been arranged." Harry stared at the Brigadier for the moment and grinned.

"Thanks Brigadier, sir." Harry said as he stood and left the office.

--//

He looked up as the door opened to his…his cell. "Really Brigadier, if you must send your paltry excuse for 'interrogators' into see me, can you not do it on a regular schedule, it really is most tiresome."

"Not an interrogator Magister." He stared in some surprise as a man walked into the room, the door was shut quickly behind him, the Brigadier had learnt his lesson not to dawdle with the door.

Harry had never really seen Magister look surprised before, he allowed himself to smile widely as the door was shut quickly behind him.

"Hello Magister."

The Master as he was known by all around here smiled at him. "My dear Harry Potter, my, my haven't you changed."

Harry took a seat opposite him at the desk that had been placed there _not_ for the benefit of Magister but for UNIT's investigators.

"You seemed surprised to see me Magister."

He chuckled. "Have you come on the wings of the dear Doctor Harry?"

Harry shook his head. "The Doctor doesn't know I'm here," Harry paused "Well he knows I'm here in this time period, but not that I'm here seeing you."

"So Mr Potter what _are_ you doing in the 1970s?"

"Aside from despairing at the lack of technological advancement?" Harry withdrew a box of things he'd cobbled together when the Brigadier told him the time he could see the Magister. "Look at this." He placed it on the table, the Master pushed the box with a pencil that he'd been using to fill in a crossword.

"A jamming device, localised to this room."

"Audio only, I don't want the Brigadier getting too antsy and barging in here, he's already got his suspicions about me." Harry said with a smile, tucking the device back within his pockets.

"The Brigadier, what have you been up to Mr Potter?"

Harry shrugged and told him, more so than he'd told the Brigadier and the Doctor, not quite everything but the gist.

"So you're here to kill your romantic interest?"

"Ex and…I would like to take her back alive, but I am beginning to become frustrated."

"You do not know frustration Harry until you've been locked up by this excuse for a military operation."

Harry nodded sagely. "I wouldn't worry too much about that."

"You're here to release me?" The Master asked curiously, eyeing Harry and holding eye contact.

"You taught me Magister, and I'm from _your_ future, don't try _that_ on me." Harry said coolly, matching his gaze. "In any case I do believe the Brigadier would probably shoot both of us if that were to happen."

"Wound Harry, he is in the employ of the United Nations and I am his prisoner."

Harry chuckled as Magister smiled.

"So you thought you would visit me, the Brigadier must trust you then?"

"I think he trusts me enough. The Doctor has vouched for me and I am useful to him for now." Harry conceded.

"With the magical attacks that are currently roaring through this little country of yours." The Master stated.

"You noticed?"

"It seemed appropriate to keep myself informed Mr Potter, it certainly is interesting knowing the beginnings of this little scuffle that lead you to be the man you are."

"And throughout it I need to hold the course to maintain the web of time, all the while knowing _he's_ out there and what will happen."

"You are at least aware of the web of time Mr Potter, that is more than your little terrorist friend, who, should the opportunity come, you should eliminate – to further prevent her affecting the culture of this timeline." Harry eyed Magister as he spoke calmly.

"I know, and if it comes down to it I will act." Harry sighed. "But what do I do to stop myself from saving people?"

"Who?"

"People I know will die. Who need to die." Harry said quietly.

"That is more the Doctor's field of operations Mr Potter than it is my area of expertise." He said leaning back in his chair.

"And I've known the Doctor for a while, maybe even as long as you" Harry looked up at the Time Lord "but probably in far more guises."

"And?" Magister prompted.

Harry cleared his throat. "Well, Harry old chap. The time stream is a delicate thing, both the lives and deaths of people help to balance the scales. I once knew the man, a monk on the hillside…" Harry trailed off in his best impression of the Doctor's voice.

Magister started to clap, Harry found that it sounded odd, his clapping without his leather gloves. "A most excellent rendition of the dear Doctor, I'm sure he would definitely _not_ approve Mr Potter."

There was a knock on the door.

"Time's up Mr Potter." Said the Brigadier as he walked into the room.

"So soon Brigadier, Mr Potter and I were just starting to enjoy intelligent conversation. Something your officers and interrogators sorely lack."

"Potter, out, now." The Brigadier ordered.

"Yes sir Brigadier." Harry said with a gentle edge of sarcasm. "Try not to kill anyone Magister, they are after all just government employees, their current employ and continued existence is torture enough for them." He said as he pushed his chair in and walked past the Brigadier.

Lethbridge-Stewart eyed the Master as the man in question chuckled to himself.

"What did he say to you?" Lethbridge-Stewart demanded, his hand resting on his gun.

"Me Brigadier? You are the one who approved his presence in this, my humble cell." The Master tutted. "Surely you can keep a security monitor on your 'Number One prisoner'?" The Master asked in a condescending teasing tone before returning to his crossword. "Now let me see, eight letters, military intelligence…" The Master looked up at the Brigadier. "Oxymoron."

--//

His chat with Magister had done wonders for his concentration and focus, it was one thing to talk to the Doctor casually about things of the present and vague future. But it was another to receive some cool logic, calm deductions from a friend of equal focus, dedication and honesty.

The portable temporal scanner he'd rigged up confirmed the presence of someone who had used the time turner to facilitate their temporal transference to this era. It had been worth the extra batteries he'd packed into the E-Type's boot to power everything. Trying to power the gear from the Jag's battery had just left him needing the push start the car.

All of which had lead him be standing outside a doorway, in a laneway of inner London in the dead of night being leered or checked out by various people.

It made him glad he'd made sure to hide a gun on his person as well as his wand.

That and to make sure he wasn't being tailed by Sergeant Benton, Captain Yates or anyone else under the Brigadier's command.

The name above the door read 'Action' and according to the directory he'd looked through (how Harry desperately wished once more that the internet, even a megalomaniac WOTAN controlled one existed to conduct quick and easy searches) said this was a club, but he couldn't find anything more on it. Its lack of information may have been down to zero-advertising, or it could be because it was on the list of locations that Gideon and Fabian had given him, which further convinced him that he would find someone here tonight.

Someone he would need to interrogate and then…dispose of.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but people sitting around tables; chatting and smoking, and what sounded like 'Diamonds are Forever' was playing from speakers somewhere.

But somewhere here was someone he needed to investigate and kill.

He had known he'd needed to do this, Magister had agreed. The Doctor likely wouldn't, but the Doctor didn't know about his plans for those of Ginny's group. The fact that he'd be bringing back Ginny, or at least try to bring back Ginny was a compromise he'd made with the Ministry.

Harry looked around the room again and noted (through the smoke) there were a few doors leading away from the room, obviously two were toilets, but there were others.

He wandered over to the bar and ordered a beer then walked over to an empty table, shifting as he sat down to make sure his wand 'accidentally' fell onto the table, he slowly and deliberately clumsily shoved it back within his jacket then he proceeded to try and look as uncomfortable as he could, while still looking around at everyone.

He was surprised it took as little time as it did.

"Hey there. You _looking_ for something?" Smiled a guy who sat opposite him,

_Then _Harry remembered where he was and when, and how the guy was smiling at him.

_Was_ he being hit on or was he looking for recruits to the cause?

"Uh…" Harry started.

"It's okay, everyone's nervous their first time out."

_Pretty sure._ Harry thought to himself that he was being hit on. 'How do you say my broom doesn't swing that way in 70s parlance?' Harry thought to himself.

"I…I mean a friend of mine said to come here." The man's smile broadened. Harry continued. "About a group who's about the…you know…?"

The man's smile fell slightly and jabbed a thumb backwards. "Over there, _they say_ invite only. Plenty of nervous ones in there." Harry made to stand up but the man lightly grabbed his hand.

"When you're done with the cult in there come by and have a drink."

"Uh…sure." Harry stood up. "I…my…I'm not…"

"But you're still cute." The man grinned.

Harry shook his head but smiled in any case, a compliment was a compliment it was better than Corporal Bell threatening to put his knads through a meat grinder, sort of at least.

Harry walked up to the door the man had indicated, as he approached a woman stepped out of a small alcove he also could see the form of a man only _just_ covered by an invisibility cloak.

"Hardly necessary given the amount of smoke in here." Harry said as he reached forward and grabbed the cloak pulling it off the man's shoulders.

"Yes?" He asked staring at him. Harry exhaled with a sigh.

"A friend told me that there was a guy who came here, you're holding meetings about…"

"About?" The man crossed his hands a wand Harry noticed was in his hand, hidden mostly from view.

Harry thought quickly to himself, again his lack of the vocabulary of the time was going to get him killed, or at least thrown onto the grotty floor if he didn't come up with something quickly.

The problem was there wasn't anything _really_ being said about aliens.

Except the events, they were in the news. "About the Yetis some are claiming were _aliens_" He hissed the word aliens "and other _deviant_ things." He continued as he narrowed his eyes.

The man clapped a hand on his shoulder and Harry tensed and was about to knee him in the stomach and disappear into the forming crowd that had been growing during their little talk.

"Good. Got to check, they're all about letting the right ones in." Harry nodded as he calmed himself for what might next be a pitch battle when he walked into the room.

What it turned out to be is a series of mind-numbing speeches giving reasons for why everyone fell unconscious a few years ago and why wizards were dressing up in silver suits during that time and how the English muggles were tempting fate by going into the heavens and to Mars.

Of all the speeches this was the only one that got close to the ideology that Voldemort used/would use/did use.

Then, as he was beginning to think that he'd die of boredom before anyone turned up someone walked stepped out the the audience and walked towards the stage.

Harry recognised him as Joshua…something. In matching faces through the various sources of information the Ministry hadn't wanted to run any of said information through their 'information retrieval systems', which probably meant getting some underpaid recent Hogwarts graduate to check the information. They'd merely confirmed they were all wizards and therefore Harry could _remove_ them with less of a moral quandary than _disappearing_ muggles as the turn of phrase might go. Remove them because they were knowingly part of Ginny's illegal activities, they fell within the Ministry's purview and therefore his actions taken on behalf of the Ministry were legal.

He also didn't have the space or really the inclination to take them back to the future.

Harry _thought_ everything was going well, the man was up talking and then he gazed around the room and his eye fell on Harry.

He already was hunkered down in the chair but the man faltered in his speech.

"Oh, shit. Harry Potter." Harry leapt up kicking the chairs out of the way as the man said his first name, there were wizards and witches pulling wands at him shouting and panicking.

Harry also had his wand out and fired a few stunners in rapid progression at those closes and withdrew the gun.

The man on stage stood stock still, staring at him.

"You're not going to get out of here alive!" Shouted someone from the back as Harry ran up onto the stage and pointed the gun at Joshua whilst he kept his wand pointed at the crowd.

"Really, isn't that a cliché yet?" He asked no one in particular.

"You can't be here, Ginny said we were-"

Harry cut him off. "Ginny is a lot of things." He murmured. "You're all going to let me leave here." He said in a commanding tone half mesmerizing half toned as he did for the DA meetings.

Several people started to nod, then someone tried to fire some sort of irritation curse at him.

"_Stupefy_." Harry said in a level tone as his spell thwacked into the spell caster.

"Or what?" Called someone else.

"Or I start shooting? Or I shoot this man? Do I need to give reasons? I'm holding the weapons." He said looking around. If there hadn't been anti-apparition wards around this room he would have forced a side-along apparition already.

Then something occurred to him, though it was probably too late to shift the blame. "You can let us leave now or bad things will continue to happen. Why do you think there's an anti-apparition ward around this room?"

Harry really doubted that would work, especially after he had started off firing spells at everyone.

But strangely it did start people talking.

'_A more innocent time'_ he thought to himself. Or just more stupid followers.

Harry aimed none too carefully a spell at the door blasting it off its hinges.

And jabbed the gun into Joshua's back.

"Now are we going to walk out of here nicely or do I need to shatter your spine with a _muggle _weapon and don't apparate, with me this close and this weapon this close you're dead either way." Harry muttered into the man's ear as Harry reached around and grabbed the man's wand with his own wand hand.

Everyone in the room watched, wands levelled at him.

It almost felt like old times. Except in _his_ past they would've already begun to shoot at him and taking hostages hadn't been part of his or Dumbledore's style.

Harry levelled his wand at the man, he was handcuffed to the metal chair and then tied up with rope as well.

Harry shifted his shoulders staring at the man. Side-along apparition wasn't pleasant, forcing someone to go through with it in a room full of people, next to an anti-apparition ward wasn't at all a fun experience. It felt like he'd pulled every muscle in his body.

Harry wondered as he stretched his legs if Joshua would see the irony of being tortured in a factory formerly used by aliens. Not that anyone had come into Auto Plastics since its use by the Autons and it had become a UNIT held property since then, 'quarantined', though all the alien technology had long since been cleared out. Supposedly it was about to be earmarked as a training ground for UNIT soldiers.

"Joshua, I just need to know where Ginny is. That's not too hard now is it?" Harry asked calmly once more. They had been at this for at least 2 hours, well Harry had, the man had fallen unconscious a few times.

"You can't…she said…" The man was frothing at the mouth a bit, red spittle dripping down chin.

Irritatingly the man had had training against hypnotism, he'd bitten his tongue quite hard to pull himself out of the state Harry'd almost managed to slip him into.

The stuttering and slightly dazed look he man was now giving him was likely a direct result of the Cruciatus he'd cast on the man.

Multiple times.

Harry stared at the man looking down into his eyes.

"Why now, why continue with your little vendetta of cultural manipulation now? You know what's happening in the wizarding world here and now. Why start your cultural war now?"

Harry watched the man's slightly glazed eyes as he blinked and swallowed some of the spittle in his mouth as he eyed Harry. "Why fight the inevitable Harry Potter, we are in the past, we will triumph, we shall become the future."

Harry opened his mouth about to try and explain the temporal complexities of being involved in the past.

"So how am I here, also from the future, I left after you departed. I should be a revolutionist." Harry reasoned with the man calmly.

"You're a deviant, you _actually_ believe the corruptions that the muggles create with our influence. It's a corruption of everything we are."

" '_Corruption of everything we are'_ " Harry repeated. "I've never heard such-" Harry stopped himself, he had. "Let's go for some simple questions how about it Joshua?"

"And if I don't?" he challenged. "You'll keep casting on me?"

Harry breathed in a breath of air and then looked around the factory floor. "No." He caught the man's eye and replaced his wand in secure pocket.

The man seemed to try and smirk. It faltered as Harry withdrew his gun.

"Muggle weaponry, it's a lot less subtle than a spell, let's get a taste of it shall we?" Harry said casually.

Then he shot the man in the foot.

Harry waited, a calm presence washing over his body. Hard handed spell torture wasn't the way to go, it hadn't got him anything more than a blood and spittle covered shirt when Joshua had tried to spit on him earlier. He was thankful he hadn't dressed in his usual clothing when he'd gone to the club.

"As you can see, or feel, there is something rather interesting about muggle weaponry. So are you ready to answer some simple questions about Ginny?" The mad cow Weasley. Harry mentally added.

The man didn't say anything. Harry shot him in his other foot.

"Where is Ginny Weasley?" Harry asked meeting his gaze again, even though he was quite resistant to hypnosis it couldn't hurt at this juncture.

"I, I, I…" He stuttered as Harry raised the gun.

"Where is Ginny Weasley?" Harry asked again. Bringing the gun's barrel to bare on the man's kneecap, the left one. "WHERE IS SHE?" Harry roared.

"I, I," The man started as Harry began to pull the trigger. "I don't know, I don't know, she visits us at the meeting places."

"Good." Harry took a step back and checked the magazine in his gun. "I guess I'd better re-load." He commented offhandedly to the man.

Harry extinguished the factory's furnace, Joshua-whatever his last name was' body was now nothing put ash his pulverized bones, smashed and crushed by a variety of spells so that there would be very little to run any test on. Certainly they were crushed to a powder beyond anyone could _normally_ do.

The Ministry, back in his own time would likely be pleased, scratch that _satisfied_ with his dealing with the man.

The quality of the information was less than good however.

Ginny was alive in this era, as were at least 10 of her rabid cultural terrorists. But the man didn't know where they lurked.

They weren't stupid, there wasn't some convenient meeting place, a secret house under a Fidelius or anything like that. At the very least it was something the man didn't have any knowledge of, despite how _persuasive_ he'd been.

It did confirm that he was on the right track in terms of his scanning the London area and following up on the list Gideon and Fabian had given him.

Ginny however he didn't know anything more about. When he'd arrived he woke up unconscious in a hospital (a muggle one at that) having supposedly been hit by a truck when he 'fell out of the sky'. Scars along the man's thighs confirmed his broom must have shattered in the accident.

She'd only met him once since he'd been in this era and by the time he'd got that tidbit of information the man was babbling almost incoherently.

--//

Lethbridge-Stewart knocked and then walked into Potter's lab, Potter had returned to HQ in the early hours of the morning.

But Potter was awake now, sitting at one of the benches working on one of his 'scanning devices'.

"Mr Potter there you are."

"Here I am Brigadier." He said wearily not looking up at him.

It was a phrase he'd often heard from the Doctor, but from Mr Potter this morning he sounded tired, flat, seemingly exhausted hunched over his equipment.

"Mr Potter. Tomorrow you'll be accompanying me to the Prime Minister's office. He wants to be briefed by my 'esoteric advisor' on the increase in magical incidents on British soil in the lead up to the second World Peace Conference."

"Very well Brigadier, is this my payback for being allowed to chat with the Master?" He said looking up from his work.

"Are you quite alright Mr Potter?" Lethbridge-Stewart felt compelled to ask as he looked at the younger man who seemed to wear an expression of years far beyond him.

"I had an unpleasant, yet fruitful night Brigadier." He quirked a small smile.

"You dealt with one of your terrorists then?" Lethbridge-Stewart asked after a few moments of silence between them.

"Yes." Potter said simply.

"Then you're on the right track Mr Potter. 8 am tomorrow Mr Potter, and we'll be driven up to Downing Street, you're not going in _that_ car."

Potter broke into a genuine smile. "Come now Brigadier, it's a classic, plus it's got things the Doctor's car hasn't."

"Such as?" Lethbridge-Stewart asked.

"A roof." He said with a grin. "And the ability to be a little more inconspicuous than a bright yellow roadster."

Lethbridge-Stewart smiled at Potter. "Remember Mr Potter, dress appropriately for a meeting with the Prime Minister."

"Yes sir Brigadier." Potter gave him a mock salute as he left the lab.

--//

"I said appropriately Mr Potter." Lethbridge-Stewart said as they sat opposite one another in the car as they left UNIT HQ for Downing Street.

Harry was dressed as he usually was; cotton shirt, battered brown leather jacket and a wide brimmed hat.

"You're touting me as your esoteric advisor Brigadier, be thankful I don't have the Doctor's penchant for smoking jackets, capes and insulting politicians."

"Small mercies." Lethbridge-Stewart muttered to himself.

Harry gazed out the window as they were driven towards London.

He'd never been into Downing Street, he knew that Shaklebolt had and he recalled vaguely someone saying something about the ministry being able to contact the Prime Minister.

But it was a very vague memory.

They had been shown into the Prime Minister's office and were sitting before his desk, they'd been asked to wait as he'd been delayed, somewhere.

Harry stood up as soon as the door was closed and started looking around the room.

"Mr P-" Harry cut him off before he could say anything further.

"Mr James if you please Brigadier." Harry said casually as he pulled a notepad out of his pocket and scrawled 'BUG' on it.

The Brigadier blinked in recognition.

"So Brigadier, the weather, isn't it dashing this time of year?" Harry said as he looked around, thinking to himself.

A secret passageway would be somewhat cumbersome.

So that left…the fireplace. He thought to himself as he walked over to it, there was no sign of a floo pot, or the ash that was left over from floo powder around the grate. But that could just mean very efficient cleaning staff.

"And the weather in the North Sea is looking to be a right disaster…" The Brigadier continued.

"Hmm, yes, very much so." Harry added as he looked around and almost winked at it as he looked around at all the paintings that were higher up on the wall, one especially that looked quite bored with itself.

Harry turned away to go and look at the Prime Minister's desk and looked at a small desk clock.

"Look at the time Brigadier, I really think we should have a word with the Prime Minister's secretary, we don't want to miss the Millennium bug discussion forum." Harry said as he walked over to the door, grabbing the Brigadier's shoulder as he did so.

"What the blazes is the millennium bug?"

"Hyperbole for the most part, somewhat dangerous though not impervious to bullets for the rest." Harry replied distractedly as he shut the door.

"I'll inform the Minister's secretary that we'll move to the board room." Harry nodded to the Brigadier.

"Brigadier, I want to know that all these random attacks aren't going to disrupt the World Peace Conference."

"It won't sir, Sir Reginald and the other delegates will be under complete UNIT protection for the duration."

_Oh…_Harry thought to himself it was _that_ World Peace Conference.

"They'd better be Brigadier, UNIT's the only group those delegates are willing to trust." The Prime Minister said with some distaste. "Now what are you doing about these incidents of magic."

"The indicator clock not filling you with confidence Prime Minister? An early warning system gift from someone in the Ministry of Magic perhaps?" Harry asked casually as he poured himself a cup of tea.

The Brigadier coughed slightly. "This is my advisor Prime Minister."

"Like your 'scientific advisor' Brigadier, I don't know where you get your staff."

"You could say I dropped by for the duration Prime Minister, but I'm here to help UNIT where I can. So…?" Harry trailed off.

"Yes, _he_ thought it would give me some level of comfort that and _that_ painting." The Prime Minister said with further distaste.

"Yes, two hands 'work' and 'mortal peril' wouldn't fill me with confidence." Harry admitted, he'd noticed the clock when looking around the Prime Minister's office desk.

"Do you have any advise on how I should carry out private conversations in my office, with only the assurance that no one is listening?"

"I assume you've tried having it removed?"

The Prime Minister laughed. "Scrapped, ripped, cut, nothing seems to affect it. According to one expert it'd take a bomb or a missile to dislodge it."

"I think something slightly lower key and lower tech is called for, some redecorating, perhaps in the lead up to the World Peace Conference. Thick curtains around the paintings Prime Minister, that should block out the sound getting to the painting, and they won't be able to see through it either." Harry said as he recalled Grimmauld Place's painting fiasco.

"What if _he_ drops by demanding I remove them?"

"Shoot him." Both the Brigadier and the Prime Minister stared at him. Harry smiled. "I mean tell him that this is your office, and if your armed forced caught a spy in your midst they'd do everything in their power to protect you."

"And what about his…his…_magic_?" He hissed the word.

"The Ministry won't risk doing anything to you, but if you're worried keep a diary, some wizards, not just within the Ministry may modify your memory, a diary might help." Harry didn't really have any idea if a diary would help _recovering_ hidden memories, with training you could, but…hopefully it'd just make the Prime Minister feel secure.

"Well Brigadier have I earned my keep for another week?" Harry asked as they walked out of Downing Street.

"Yes Mr Potter, well done. It's almost as though you've done this before."

"Me Brigadier? A bit a blackmail and friendly conversation with political leaders, it's all rather simple."


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

_That's not gone well._ Harry thought to himself as he tore out of the tiny bookshop, a piece of brickwork exploding to his left as a group of quite angry cultural idealists and one cultural terrorist fired nasty coloured spells at him.

_Is there even such a thing at the Statute of Secrecy?_ Harry thought as he turned back and shouted stunning spells in the direction of his pursuers.

His spells crackled down the short alleyway striking two of the people chasing him.

Harry ran around the corner, sliding slightly as his shoes failed to grip at the street he turned just as several spells slammed into the neighbouring shops making the windows explode outwards under the assault of spellfire.

"They _really_ don't like me." He said as he took a breath and aimed his wand at the street. "_Aguamenti_." Then he took off again down another street. He had no idea where he was going, but as the air around him fizzed and crackled with spells it didn't really matter much, getting away from the people firing spells was a number one priority.

Something hit him in the shoulder and he felt a sensation not too dissimilar to burning and realised a spell had struck him on the shoulder. _Great_.

Turning down another alleyway he considered apparating, he hadn't before because of the spellfire, and now the burning sensation was pulling at his concentration, splinching would not be a good thing. There was no safety net and he didn't exist beyond a fake accent and a semi-fake name in the wizarding world, and the two guys who could vouch for him knew his future headmaster. Or in another word; _complicated_.

_They_ were probably pissed off that he'd 'disappeared' one of their group. Not that they knew or could know how permanent he'd 'disappeared' Joshua. But they were still pissed at him, maybe someone had sent an owl out.

Damn those owls, or letters, or something.

It was oddly invigorating, running in the night air, Harry reflected, even taking into account the spell that was burning his shoulder and the other spells that were being flung around him, it was fortunate they were such _bad_ shots. Atrociously bad shots in fact.

Which was bad considering where he found himself; a busy street.

Harry fired off a series of spell and curses he'd only used on odd occasions since Hogwarts; _Petrificus Totalus_, jelly legs jinx, _Confundo_ anything to slow the rabid mob down, short of killing them, Harry suspected that would just anger them more.

_Really,_ _how had the boring group of people reading off manifestos turned into a rabid mob? _Harry asked himself in a second or two of spare thought as he looked around for a way out that wasn't through the crowded street.

He sighed. "_Sonorus_. Make a hole!" He shouted, his voice amplified he gained the attention of everyone just as a rainbow of spells from people _not_ incapacitated followed him as he picked up his speed of running.

_Of course it couldn't go easily._ He thought to himself, as the crowd parted as he ran down the length of the crowded street, unfortunately the crowd didn't close as he ran but instead led the rabit wand wavers follow him. The street came to an abrupt end he vaguely noticed that the street sign said 'Carnaby street'.

"Always wanted to visit." He said as he sucked in a breath of the cool London air and looked around the street.

_Never a taxi when you need one. _Harry thought to himself as he chose a direction to run in.

--//

"What precisely were you doing Harry to to be sprayed and burnt with in this curious substance?" The Doctor asked, jeweler's spectacles on as he picked out another piece of his shirt that had been _melted_ into his flesh. Harry grit his teeth as he felt his flesh be pulled away.

"Nothing much, dropping in on a manifesto reading." He said as casually as he could.

"Hmmm." The Doctor said dabbing his wound with a substance that made him want to swear in 5 different languages. "Was this-" The Doctor started to say but Harry also spoke first.

"I heard the Daleks gate crashed the peace conference, did everyone get out okay?"

"You heard about that?" Harry looked over his shoulder at the Doctor and nodded.

"Such a pity, Sir Reginald had a excellent wine cellar too."

Harry snorted. "I was expecting you to elucidate on the nature of the Daleks' presence there Doctor."

"Ah, a rather brash business on the part of the Daleks Harry old chap. Considering their past form quite a complicated mess of a temporal paradox, quite a mess of the time stream with their adultered time travel contraptions they made to attempt to create the future that had been created through a misguided attempt at time travel by _humans_."

Harry swore as the Doctor pulled out a large piece of fabric and what felt like flesh.

"Really Harry such language." The Doctor tutted.

"How much flesh did you just rip out Doctor?" Harry asked with a tightness in his voice.

"Well…" The Doctor began.

"To add to my myriad of scars." Harry said to himself, at least where the spell struck was already where he already had scar tissue. The Doctor had commented as much when he'd started to clean up the wound when he'd found Harry trying to do it one armed in the sick bay. "Is there anything wrong with _humans_ having time travel Doctor?"

"Humanity my dear Harry is barely pulling itself away from starting wars with one another. Time travel is an immensely complex operation."

"I managed it." Harry commented.

"You're a special case Harry, you have benefited from my unique perspective throughout your years."

"Humanity gets it eventually doesn't it?" Harry asked curiously.

"Eventually Harry, some nasty experiments with the Zygma beam will likely force temporal agents into creation. Long after your time." The Doctor commented. "I wonder why I knew that?" He muttered to himself. "The Time Lords messing with my memory, keeping me stuck here…" He continued mostly to himself.

Harry reached around and placed a hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "No exile lasts forever Doctor." Harry said as he met the Doctor's gaze.

The Doctor looked at him and held his gaze for a moment. "You should keep still Harry, this" He grabbed a small pot that was sitting next to the antiseptics. "Is likely to be painful, but should drastically help in with the healing process. Really, what are you up to Harry that leads you to this?"

Harry sighed. "I'm ensuring the stability of the web of time and protecting _my_ future from cultural terrorists. Something that fuc-argh!" Harry grunted as the Doctor used a spatula-like contraption to smear a dollop of the whatever it was onto his wound.

For a moment pain blotted out everything.

"This better be" Harry paused to catch a breath. "Really good, because I think I'd rather be hit with the spell again than go through that."

"Yes, well, that is, it is a work in process. Something to keep you from injuring yourself _too_ much whilst working in your past."

"I try Doctor I try, I just need a different tactic." Harry moving his shoulder around, it felt like all his muscles around the injured area were still twitching through pain either induced by the Doctor's concoction or through the original spellfire.

--//

According to Magister some time ago, in the Magister's future and his past the disguises Magister liked to use required a 'low level psychic interface to bond to your features'. Harry would have liked to quiz Magister on this more but he had been moved by the Brigadier as his prosecution was moved forward. From the scuttlebutt he'd heard around the UNIT tea making facilities 'the Master' was going to be tried in absentia.

Then Harry knew he would be transferred to Fortress Island, where he'd annoy the Brigadier (and the British Navy) by escaping (amongst other things).

All of which was in the future, just not too far into it.

Harry looked around him, considering UNIT's status as a top secret facility, they _really _needed to install a few more security camera. UNIT Evidence Room 1 Plus perhaps adopt a system where names of secure high value areas aren't written in nice big letters on the door of said rooms. Though this was the same facility that had 'UNIT – Top Secret' written on a sign out the front. He'd asked the Doctor about it, but he'd muttered something about "pompus politicking officials" and left the explanation at that.

"_Alohomora_." Harry said in a soft tone and smiled as the locks on the door unlocked themselves.

The room was deceptively larger than its door led you to believe, it seemed to have covered several rooms and they'd just decided to knock all the walls out to hold all the various bits of evidence against whomever UNIT captured.

Which considering UNIT's unofficial 'shoot first' mandate was interesting.

Harry pulled down another box off the shelf and looked back at the box he'd thrown the masks he'd found in, he'd already found a couple of 'unidentified mask' masks, including one that smelled vaguely of cigar smoke. He'd also found one mask that was "the Master" found on according to the note on the bag it was in 'Rex Farrell' whoever he was. Going through the box of mostly burnt items (labelled 'recovered from Nuton Power Complex site), he found another mask, badly burnt like the rest of the things in the box, it looked very vaguely likely the Brigadier.

"Could be of some help." He muttered to himself replacing the box and throwing the bagged item into the box along with the others he'd 'liberated'.

Just as he was having a final look around someone walked in.

"Oi, what're you doin' in 'ere?"

"'what're you doin' in 'ere?'" Harry repeated in a muttered tone shaking his head, while he did thank the soldier that he didn't follow the 'shoot first interrogate the remains later' philosophy it was still something of a silly thing to say. Maybe put your hands up, stop what you're doing, something like that.

Harry stepped around from the shelf and fixed a stare on the soldier. "I'm not doing anything solider."

"I…You…" He faltered as Harry held his gaze.

"You didn't find anything in here, you found a locked door and then continued your patrol, do you understand me?" Harry said in a calm level tone staring into the man's eyes.

"I found a locked door and continued my patrol." He said in a monotone.

Harry allowed a smirk to play onto his lips. "Good, you found nothing."

"I found nothing." He repeated.

"Go about your patrol." Harry said and clicked his fingers, the man turned slowly around and walked out of the room.

Harry gave the room a once over before grabbing his box of liberated items and walked out the door. A tap of his wand re-sealed the door.

As he left the corridor he saw the solider continuing along it, dutifully checking all the door locks.

Harry watched him for a moment before heading off in the opposite direction.

It was somewhat odd, looking in the mirror and twisting his face around, making this _other_ face move.

It was much like using a polyjuice potion, without the weird out of body experience that came with your whole body changing.

This was a much less _weird_ experience.

Putting the mask on had been a somewhat odd experience, the first time; nothing happened it just felt like a rubbery mask. It was only when he concentrated, reaching out with his mind in an odd abstract way that he felt something.

He really wished Magister was around so he could ask him about it, but he didn't want to ask the Brigadier _yet_, he suspected that the Brigadier was still suspicious of his relationship to 'the Master'. Once the Master was moved from wherever he was to Fortress Island under guard by Colonel Trenchard and his men, then he could go and visit, he'd just have to play it correctly.

"How does one convince someone he is also seeking 'enemy agents'?" Harry asked the man in the mirror. His voice was unchanged, he knew that both the Doctor and Magister could throw their voices and mimic a lot of people. Magister more so than the Doctor, or perhaps the Doctor just didn't utilise the ability as much, or had the need to.

Harry stripped off the mask and pulled on another, it was another non-descript face, again there was the weird feeling of enclosure as the mask latched itself onto the contours of his face and then he was able to stop concentrating on keeping it there and in place. Now it just remained in place as he pulled expressions in the mirror.

"This will be good for my purposes…" Harry said in a faux Eastern European accent.

Harry pulled on the burnt mask, it scratched against his skin but still sealed more or less exact as the others did.

"Nothing in ze world can stop me now!" Harry said and then turned around as someone was knocking loudly on his (locked) laboratory door.

"Potter! Potter are you in there?" Called the voice.

Harry looked back at the mirror. "I wonder if he's looking for these?" He asked the burned man in the mirror, then he pulled off the mask.

"Really should stop talking to myself. First sign of genius…or is that madness?" Harry wondered as he ignored the Brigadier's shouting and knocking and replaced all the masks in a filing cabinet that he promptly locked.

"Yes Brigadier?" He asked as he wrenched the door open.

"What the blazes were you up to Potter didn't you hear me?"

"Practicing being a megalomaniac Brigadier, now that you've locked up the Master someone has to take up the mantle." He said with a casual seriousness that gave the Brigadier pause for thought as he stared at him for a few seconds.

"There's a situation Potter, with me now." He said pulling Harry into the corridor by the shoulder.

"Oh dear." Harry said as he looked through the book of photos the Brigadier had given him. "Oh dear." Harry repeated. "Who were these delivered to?"

"The Prime Minister. They were found in the board room in Downing Street."

"Oh dear." Harry said once more.

"Security's been stepped up." The Brigadier said with some confidence.

"If you don't mind who are these people exactly?"

"Ambassadors, Britain's included. All here for-"

Harry cut him off. "The Peace Conference. What about Styles?" Harry asked as he looked through the photos again. "And what of the Peace Conference?"

"It concluded, Potter are we dealing with…" The Brigadier asked, his voice very tense.

Harry sat heavily down into a chair. "Yes Brigadier we're dealing with wizards."

The Brigadier nodded. "Then as leader of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce UK I am officially placing you charge of the investigation into this matter Potter."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Why is UNIT involved at all Brigadier, I would have thought with tensions being so high…the nations whose ambassadors were taken would be out for blood."

"The 'situation' Potter is still very tense. The Prime Minister wanted to bring in 5, 6 and the army but the international community over ruled him, they want UNIT as a UN sanctioned taskforce experienced with this sort of thing."

"Ah…of course." Harry said with an understanding smile.

Harry laid the photos out on a now clear bench in his lab. The Brigadier walked in a moment later with another man who was carrying a box marked 'Biohazard'.

"When the letter arrived someone in Downing Street thought to seal it, given the tension during the peace conference." The Brigadier explained. Harry nodded, he had wondered if there was a letter.

"Yes very good, who knows what sort of nasties are lurking on the page." Harry looked in through the plastic of the case. "They've got rather good penmanship." Harry observed. He looked back up from the box a few moments later and found that the Brigadier was till standing in the room watching him.

"Well?" He demanded.

"Well." Harry repeated. "What Brigadier?"

"Mr Potter may I remind you the full power of UNIT is at your disposal."

"Why Brigadier, that power could set me up above the gods!" Harry said in a slightly sarcastic tone before looking at the Brigadier coolly. "Brigadier, it's been" He paused and looked at a clock on the wall. "4 hours since you told me, I'm not the Doctor, and while _I_ am a wizard I can't conjure information from the æther. But…" Harry said looking back at the biohazard box and thinking about a half remembered conversation, he was relatively sure it was Hermione, though it may have been Ioan. He was pretty sure there had been food involved.

"But…Potter?" The Brigadier walked around into his field of vision.

"Yes Brigadier?"

"You were saying something I would imagine to be important," He said before adding. "_just_ like the Doctor."

Harry grinned manically at the Brigadier. "I'll need an electron microscope, I'm sure you can rustle up one of those on short notice Brigadier _and_ I need to go to London."

"I'll send one of my men Mr Potter I want you here."

Harry shook his head. "No Brigadier, I need to go to the alley, there are a few things I need to pick up and consult." Harry said as he started to jot down some ideas.

"I thought you touted yourself as my expert Mr Potter?"

"Trust you to focus on the negatives Brigadier, be happy you _have_ an expert."

--//

The Brigadier hadn't let him go alone, but at least it was Benton and not Yates.

The Brigadier had also made sure both he and Benton were armed, well Benton was armed, the Brigadier had begrudgingly given him a weapon. Just in case Harry reasoned.

_Damn the history books for not having a lot of info_. Harry thought to himself as they made their way once more into Diagon Alley.

Now unlike previous visits it was not the nostalgia that kept him looking subtly looking around but signs of attack. Benton also was doing a good job of keeping his awe in check.

"So what are we here for…Harry?" Benton asked casually as they made their way along the alley.

"Books on identifying ink." It had been a vague memory that he couldn't place about wizards and ink, certain wizards of 'higher standing' (aka purebloods) personalised their ink, usually using a local plant that grew on their estate…or something like that. There was a spell and probably transfiguration involved, or possibily potions. It was a conversation that came and went in passing, it wasn't something he thought he'd ever need.

"Books?" Benton asked somewhat incredulously.

"And certain ingredients that can't be ordered from the magnificent UNIT stores." Harry added as he looked around. "I want to get several items to last out this situation, just in case. First Benton to the bank, I wonder if the Brigadier will want a receipt?" He mused as he guided Benton through the crowds.

"I do believe Benton your are becoming 'quite unflappable' as I'm sure the Doctor would say." Harry said patting the shrunken package of books in his jacket.

"How so …Harry?" He asked, not looking at him rather still looking around the alley; searching.

"Calmly taking in the weird and wacky Benton. In here." Harry motioned towards the potion supplies shop.

It was almost like preparing for Hogwarts, except working with half remembered information and wondering around a past he'd previously only read about.

In fact, Harry decided it was nothing like preparing for Hogwarts.

Except the bit where he kept nearly getting killed of course, at least no Voldemort out to kill him, yet.

"Done?" Benton asked. He hadn't purchased a lot of things in the potions supplies shop, just a few things he hoped would be useful.

"Yes…" Harry trailed off as he watched a man with long blonde hair walk past and stumbled slightly as he went to follow him.

"Who is it?" Benton hissed at him as they followed the man.

"Very good." Harry congratulated. "A man I've known in my past." Harry replied, unnecessarily mysteriously.

Borgin & Burkes was still as grim as it would be in the future. But it did give him an idea.

"Come on Benton, lets head back, I've just had a good idea."

"_You_ do sound like the Doctor sometimes Harry."

"I'll take that as a compliment Sergeant."

--//

"Daleks? What the devil do you want access to those things for Potter?"

"To build a bug." Harry said simply. The Brigadier stared him down. "Daleks use different frequencies for communication, they also have heavy shielding and are far more compact than anything I could build in a short amount of time with the low-tech stuff on offer at the moment."

"And you believe bugging this shop will help."

"It's a possibility, it will greatly increase the chances of finding the hostages' location."

The Brigadier merely nodded, wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to Harry. "They will be expecting you when you arrive Mr Potter."

--//

It was down a barely marked road and was a facility built within an airship hanger, that from the outside looked a little dilapidated, but the inside was all whites and secure accesses.

He'd had his pass checked a dozen or so times, but after that was lead to a room where several blown out shells of Daleks and several other intact ones were held. All had name tags from the Auderly House attack.

Harry withdrew some long protective gloves usually used to protect the wearer against corrosive substances and dug began to get at the transceiver array.

He had come across a Dalek or two in his past, and the Doctor had at one point gone into a long description of what made one 'tick'. A thought struck Harry as he scraped bits of dead mutant off the dull black box.

What if the Doctor had simply told him that stuff so he'd know about it now?

Harry quickly shut that thought down, not because it might be true, it could well be.

But more because thoughts like that and time travel interactions started to leave him slightly distracted, and that was something he didn't want to be when he was elbow deep in dead Dalek mutant.

--//

Placing the bug had been relatively easy, you had to give it to the Daleks, full shielding, a power cell that would likely last a few generations (probably less though given it was from a dead one), all in a package the size of a small oddly shaped paperback book.

"Well?" Harry asked as he climbed into the Land Rover beside Benton who was waiting on a radio for confirmation from the team across the road who were set up with an equally small black box, and would be recording and transcribing listening for anything of use.

"_Confirmation Trap 2, clear signal._" Benton turned to Harry.

"Good, one job down, several more to go." Harry said as he started the Land Rover.

--//

Harry carefully repositioned the camera and checked the focus. What he _would_ have liked was to scan all these wizarding photos and the animations they went through into a computer and do a full analysis of them.

Too bad that sort of technology wasn't around yet.

So taking photos of each 'frame' of the animation for each photo was what he'd come up with, then the Brigadier would take them to whichever analysts he'd got to look at these things and hopefully work out an idea of a location.

It was somewhat tedius work, but something he wanted to get started on before he started on other things.

"Hello" Harry looked up at the voice but ignored it, he had his laboratory door open given the various people who were delivering things to him and into the room across the hall from him that the Brigadier had assigned him for the duration of this crisis.

"Hello is anyone here?" Harry looked up and realised who the voice was.

Jo walked into one of UNIT's laboratories, it was _almost_ as messy as the Doctor's, with large maps hung on the wall and big computer reel boxes around. Plus various pieces of equipment half assembled.

Looking around the room it seemed empty…but she thought she saw something against…she shook her head, instead turning back to one of the large benches. It had photos spread out, all oddly black and

white or sepia with a camera positioned above them.

As she was about to pick one up a voice startled here.

"What are you doing in here Miss Grant? This area is strictly off limits."

"Brigadier…I was just…" The she remembered the piece of paper in her hand. "An electron microscope was delivered to the Doctor's lab, but the room's location initial on the paper said here so I…"

"So you just decided to come and have a look." The Brigadier surmised.

"How can this place be off limits Brigadier, don't I have 'top level access'?" She asked still looking around, she was sure she could see something, something she _didn't_ want to see.

"It can Miss Grant and it is. There are certain UNIT operations that aren't within the Doctor's purview." He took the piece of paper out of her hand. "I'll see to having the equipment moved."

She turned back to the Brigadier, she thought about challenging him, but she had a night out with Mike tonight, she could quiz him then. "Okay Brigadier." She smiled and walked out, only pausing slightly at the bench with the photos.

"Thank you for your timely appearance Brigadier."

Lethbridge-Stewart blinked, Potter seemed to just appear out of an area of the room he hadn't been looking in.

"Some form of invisibility?" He asked staring hard at him.

Potter shook his head. "Just something you and Jo didn't notice."

"And what if I didn't come to your 'rescue'?" He couldn't help but ask Potter, curious of him and his motivations.

Potter seemed to think about it for a moment. "Well Brigadier, had Jo not left I would have had several options to me, I could stun her, try and hypnotise her, or…wait for her to leave?" Harry asked watching the Brigadier. "Which did you think I was going to say Brigadier?" He asked, a thin cool smile forming across his features.

"The bug is currently functioning. Two days and still functioning. We'll be receiving the summarised reports soon."

"Very good Brigadier. You'll have these photos shortly, I assume you've got a crack team of analysts ready?" He felt like adding 'not just Corporal 'I'll crush your balls in a vice' Bell and the tea lady?'.

"Yes Mr Potter, we have a vastly increased pool of resources at our disposal."

"And once I give you something to shoot at they'll be much better utilised." Harry replied sardonically.

"Precisely Mr Potter." He replied.

--//

According to all the spells he'd cast over the page there was nothing it was giving off that was poisonous.

He had a bezoar in a Petri dish beside him just in case, and Benton who was standing watch to make sure no one else came in.

Though it was unlikely to be Jo, she and the Doctor had disappeared last night some time. He'd heard the sound of dematerialisation when he'd gone to drop off the developed photos (and the film) to the Brigadier.

He was relatively sure the Doctor and Jo were off to Peladon, not that he told the Brigadier this, he wasn't really sure how long they'd be gone, so aside from knowing what planet they were the information wouldn't be of much use.

"That can go to a handwriting expert." Harry said as he finished taking photos of the letter.

The letter itself, was a list of demands, all written very finely, carefully and precise.

Demands that the British Government relinquish its hold on certain sites around Britain. Demands to the various European and USSR governments that they hand over certain buildings and 'relics', as for the latter the letter didn't go into more detail, annoyingly.

It interestingly did not give an ultimatum.

Only that they would know…

"Benton, get on the phone and ask the Brigadier if the curtain in the Prime Minister's office is still secure."

"Sir." Harry smiled, whenever they weren't 'undercover' Benton refused to call him anything but 'Sir'.

"Sir the Brigadier's on his way down."

"Right Benton."

He began preparing samples for the electron microscope, the Brigadier had informed him that a specialist was on hand to perform all the scientific duties, leaving him to do the magic stuff. Not that he'd put it like that, but he was thankful. A friend of Ioan's had started to give him some basics in advanced scientific analysis, but a 1970s era electron microscope wasn't something they'd started to cover. Disassembling Daleks and building scanning devices he could do that, working this retro _expensive_ equipment not too much. Or maybe it was one of the things the Brigadier could write up in a report without putting the words 'esoteric' too often.

Speak of the military leader…

"Mr Potter, I've just had a report from my contact in Downing Street, the Prime Minister says he doesn't know anything about a kidnapping."

"And the curtains have gone from his office." Harry surmised.

"Yes." The Brigadier answered simply.

"I trust your contact didn't quiz the Prime Minister in his office."

"Give my men some credit Mr Potter." Lethbridge-Stewart said in a tone he usually reserved for the Doctor.

"Hmmm." Potter replied as he gazed at several liquids that were in beakers.

"Is this what you spend UNIT's funds on?" He asked looking around. "And what the devil is a bezoar?"

Potter looked up from whatever he was doing. "Stone from the stomach of a goat." Potter replied looking up at him.

"A what?"

"Rare and expensive." He held up an odd little thing in a petri dish.

"And you thought it necessary to buy several of these things?"

"Very useful too Brigadier." Potter said standing up and walking over to a small bookshelf that hadn't been here the last time he was in the lab. Potter brought back over a small box. "Here, make sure anyone who's likely to come into contact with any magical stuff has one near them."

"What's it for?"

"It's an antidote to most magical poisons." Potter replied.

Lethbridge-Stewart took the box. "Noted Mr Potter." He said looking around. "What do I tell the Prime Minister?"

"Nothing Brigadier, there's nothing you can do." Potter sighed. "We can keep telling him, But, the wizards, be they working for the magical Ministry or for our enemy will keep erasing his memory. I think it's best to keep a useful Prime Minister in office than one who has had so many memory modifications he doesn't know what day it is. Anything we need can go through the various offices." Potter said casually as though he weren't talking about the leader of Britain having his memory modified _and_ them knowing that he was being spied on by what was essentially a foreign power.

"Will his diary help him Mr Potter?" He asked curiously.

Potter exhaled, but didn't turn away from the beakers he was monitoring. "Brigadier you took me along to reassure the Prime Minister, now I'm working for you to find these wizards who've taken the diplomats and you're concerned that the Prime Minister wrote his diary?" He looked at him over the fumes.

Lethbridge-Stewart held his gaze. "Very well Mr Potter."

"Brigadier." Harry said suddenly as the Brigadier prepared to leave.

"Mr Potter?"

Harry looked around the lab, not quite a mess, but certainly filled with all manner of _stuff_, it was fortunate neither Jo nor the Doctor were around, there was a lot of stuff that could be discovered _somewhere_ in the mess.

Harry smiled to himself as he saw the folder he was looking for.

"A list of words, phrases and names that you can have one of your minions go through the summarised reports for."

"Mr Potter this is UNIT I don't have minions."

Harry chuckled. "Lackeys then Brigadier."

Harry watched as the Brigadier left, only shaking his head at Harry slightly as he walked out of the room. Benton looked like he was day dreaming, but Harry suspected it was professional detachment.

"Benton…" He started.

"Yes sir?"

Harry shook his head. "Never mind."

"Sir."

He was going to ask Benton about…about killing people, but Benton was a soldier, killing people or _things_ were orders.

What he had done and would need to do further was…

Whatever it was it was a job that he needed to do, that was what he'd come back to here and now _despite_ his current work he was here in the past to _remove_ those who came from the future who threatened wizarding culture and society. What he called himself while he was doing it wasn't really relevant to the task at hand.

--//

Benton rushed to grab the fire extinguisher, Harry seemed more surprised than anything, almost like the Doctor, except the Doctor usually maintained a more neutral expression.

"Don't bother Benton." Harry said through the coughing.

Benton made to remove his gas mask. Harry shook his head. "Don't pull that off, just prop open the windows." Harry said looking at the stain on the ceiling from the potion that had just exploded upwards.

"The Brigadier's not going to like the replacement bill for that." Harry said mostly to himself as he gingerly removed the potion from above the Bunsen burner and set it aside to cool and render into its final colour.

He looked over and saw Benton had grabbed a fan from somewhere and the smoke that had filled the lab was already beginning to vent outside.

"Can I…?" Benton asked pointing to the gas mask he was wearing. Harry nodded.

"I hope that doesn't happen again sir."

"Benton." Harry looked up from the potions book he was consulting. "From your response you sound almost startled."

"Well I wasn't expecting you to tap that beaker and that to happen." He gestured the slightly melted and blackened ceiling.

"Yes, well…" Harry trailed off. The identification book that had a list of potions to assist in identification was very detailed, it was somewhat irritating that it was written in mostly middle English with some old English thrown in, it also seemed the printing press had the day off and they'd employed a calligrapher to write out the whole book.

Harry picked up another piece of the letter with tongs. "Best put your mask on Benton."

"Why don't you sir, need one?"

"For this one I, if I've read this book correctly need to sniff the odors it gives off."

"Can't I…?" Benton trailed off, to Harry it seemed Benton really didn't enjoy wearing the mask. To be fair it was fairly constrictive UNIT issue designed to protect against weird alien nasties.

Harry shrugged. "Fine, I'm only thinking of your well being Sergeant." Harry dropped the piece of parchment into the blue potion.

Rather disappointingly nothing happened. For about 10 seconds and then the whole beaker started to fill with bubbles, and as they popped the room filled with a curious concoction of scents.

--//

Harry scrubbed the last of the goop off his and raked a comb through his hair. Dragging the last bits of the good from his hair.

"Well Mr Potter?" Harry jumped and glared at the Brigadier, the lab he'd ruined (not his own, but one beside his) had been cleared up and now he'd kicked back in his own lab with a cup of tea to relax for a little bit.

"Brigadier."

"Whatever that substance was Mr Potter it took my staff a _long_ time to remove."

"I've been at this for 3 days Brigadier." Harry dragged a hand over his face feeling the stubble that was present there. "Potions knowledge my potions Master might actually appreciate were he a master now." He muttered to himself and sighed before looking back at the Brigadier.

For the first time since coming here Harry felt the weariness that he'd felt when he'd been hunting the horcruxes with Hermione and Ron. The pressure to keep going to find what he needed, to work out these things to get the delegates back.

Harry shook his head to himself and drained his mug of tea.

"Sorry Brigadier, you were saying something." Harry realised he'd totally tuned out what the Brigadier had been saying.

Harry ignored the sigh this elicited from the Brigadier. "The team assembled to analyse those photos has almost finished sorting and categorising them."

"Any ideas yet?"

"Somewhere off near the coast, likely in a large manor house, it'll be all there in a briefing Mr Potter." The Brigadier said calmly, Harry could tell he was carefully watching him for a response.

"I'll be able to give you better idea soon Brigadier." Harry said. "I just need to arrange another trestle table and ruin an expensive map and I should be able to pull together some information." Harry finished, mostly to himself.

Harry looked at another large tome, and wished some of his friends were here to help. It was nice, being needed for his skills. But he liked it when it was on his own terms, not being run ragged by the Brigadier. It made him further understand the gamut of emotions the Doctor must have gone through being stuck here, under the Brigadier's thumb.

"So this is what all your work has lead to Mr Potter?"

"Yes Brigadier." Harry said looking up as the Brigadier was looking at the various beakers filled with various liquids, gels and pastes. They each had notes below them. "They've each enlightened me so I could make this last potion."

"Such as?"

"The wizard who created the ink used on the parchment used a plant, it grows in soil rather than water or as a parasite on another plant, "Harry said gesturing various beakers "It's probably not a magical plant, it's not inherently poisonous." Harry paused. "But it does have a magical component, which means this last potion and this variation of a four point spell should allow me to find vaguely where the plant was originally harvested." Harry said jabbing a finger at the book he was studying and looking up at the final beaker which was just beginning to turn to vapor within the beaker.

"And the gas masks are for…?"

"As Benton knows by now Brigadier, when I'm playing around with these things a gas mask is good and to have the fans on stand-by. I thought you would like to see the end result of my toiling." Harry said he picked up a set of tongs to remove the beaker from the flame and carried it over to the improvised map table he'd set up.

The map table had a map he'd purchased while in Diagon Alley at considerable expense, it was highly detailed and had locations such as Azkaban and Hogsmede on it, including various other towns and interesting locations. Also it was a map of the United Kingdom and covered a little past the Faroe Islands, and the coast of France, plus all of Ireland.

"Masks down I think gentlemen."

"Why don't…" The Brigadier started.

Harry cut him off. "Because I need to clearly incant."

Harry carefully tipped the potion out onto the map, it came out as a mist-like substance slowly covering table until the whole map was awash in the mist.

"Now, just to float the wand on the potion." Harry said as he chanced a look at the book that was resting on a chair beside him. The trickiest part was making contact with his wand to say the spell _while_ it floated on the potion, then it and the potion would indicate the plant's location.

_Probably._

"Gently." Harry whispered to himself as he carefully let his wand sit on top of the mist and held his hand onto it as he whispered the spell and stepped back. For a moment nothing happened, and then with a rush like the potion was going down a drain it formed under the wand and carried it to a point on the map.

It was a tiny point, all three men in the room leaned over the map to see where his wand was pointing to.

"Now we have a location." Harry said as he plucked his wand from the dissipating mist as the potion turned back to a sludge, ruining the map in all but one place; Foula

Harry looked over to the Brigadier who was stripping off his gas mask, frowning slightly.

"Problem Brigadier? With the photo analysis we should be able to narrow it down, it can't be _that_ big." Harry said as he wandered over to the far side of the lab where the map he was using to find Ginny's mad followers hung. Looking up the top of the map he traced a finger up to the smile island on to which his spell had indicated.

"Not on the mainland Mr Potter, that will mean a significantly more involved approach."

"You were telling me about all the resources you had at your disposal Brigadier. I think we're going to need them _all_."

"All Mr Potter." The Brigadier repeated.

"Better to be over prepared than under prepared." Harry replied. "First we work out exactly where and then..." He was cut off.

"Then surveillance Mr Potter I will commit when it's confirmed."

Harry nodded and made a note to tell the Brigadier _when_ they worked out where it could be that they mightn't be able to see where it could be, depending on how smart the Death Eaters were and how powerful their stronghold was.

Harry looked around the room with the 'image analysis experts' in it, there were enlargements everywhere of various bits of the photographs, books on architecture, interior design through the ages, flora and various other things.

"So this is the analysis without Photoshop and search engines." Harry said to himself in a slight state of awe.

"I'm sorry Mr Potter?"

"Nothing Brigadier, culture shock again." Harry said distractedly.

Turned out despite knowing exactly where (relatively speaking) the letter was written from it wouldn't help, for a while until the Brigadier's room of experts the 'manual photoshoppers and search engines' as Harry mentally called confirmed _precisely _where.

In the mean time Harry was _instructed_ to begin working on _extraction_ ideas, with Captain Yates.

"I do hope Benton was discreet." Harry said as he perused the report written up by Benton of his spying and the photos that were also presented.

"Benton knows how to keep himself hidden," The Brigadier paused and caught Harry's eye. "He's also the most educated about this world of wizards Mr Potter and knows what to look for."

"Without obviously being one of _them_." Harry added. "Hence you not asking me to look into it."

"As you said Mr Potter this is and will be a UNIT operation."

"Yes, dotting the Is and crossing the Ts, checking all the boxes for Geneva."

The Brigadier made a non-committal noise, though slightly disapproving noise that he usually made when Harry made an sarcastic observation that Harry suspected that he agreed with, though would never admit to it. They were keeping the conversation light, though it barely hid the anger at what appeared to murder of the island's population except the man at the ferry's port.

He'd on occasion wondered why Voldemort and his gang never do something as blatant like this.

His influence was already visible, in Diagon Alley there was the beginnings of a palpable sense of a 'something' in the air.

War would start soon, the first wizarding war against Voldemort, and rage it would throughout several years, ending with betrayal and death, and him obviously.

The island's population appeared to be all wizards according to Benton's report any sign of its previous population (statistics had it at less than 30) had been removed and replaced with a wholly wizarding population.

The man who'd met the ferry Benton had been aboard was 'barely lucid' according to Benton's report.

The photos showed some wizards, though nothing out of the ordinary aside from the men and women in cloaks.

And rather worryingly the body of a dragon flying across one of the photos.

Harry looked up as one of the phones on the Brigadier's desk rang.

"Yes?" Harry looked at the Brigadier as he spoke into the phone. "Definite confirmation? Good."

Harry raised an eyebrow as the Brigadier replaced the handset.

"Confirmation from an RAF flyover of the location."

"They were able to see it?" Harry asked amazed.

The Brigadier frowned. "Not precisely, they reported a distortion field at the location our estimated location based on the research department's estimates."

Harry nodded. The manual search and photoshop people had come through for them.

"So now we go and rescue these people?" Harry said.

--//

Harry was somewhat nervous as he stood at the lectern in front of the group of the various commanders who would be leading in the different groups during their assault on Voldemort and the Death Eater's encampment.

The commanders would in turn brief their men and women under their command about the relevant points.

There were plenty of people from UNIT being involved, but also personnel and others from the British Armed Forces who would also be providing vehicles and support for this operation.

UNIT in Geneva was placating the other countries whose ambassadors were kidnapped, who also wanted to 'be involved' (the Brigadier's words) in the operation. It was within British waters, on British soil, sending in foreign troops would be somewhat of a legal and diplomatic issue.

Especially considering the force they were going to use to _pacify_ the enemy.

The operation was so classified it didn't even have a name, he's just gotten used to calling it 'the operation'.

"Welcome everyone, all the background is in your packages, I'll be going through the specifics of what you need to know." Harry started as he looked around the room and pushed a button that turned on the slide projector.

--//

Harry crouched down in the small dugout in the ground, he and Captain Yates were in the small area that was covered in camouflage netting. They were the advanced reconnaissance.

Foula, a name he hadn't really been aware of a two weeks ago, now it was the focus of a large scale military operation.

Harry looked out again with his binoculars. Even here some distance from the target technology was a bit dodgy.

He'd worked with a few of the other scientists at UNIT to produce a heavily shielded radio for all involved in the operation. It still necessitated a main relay to boost the transmissions, which considering they were the only ones on the ground means they had the bulky equipment with them.

Despite not being able to _see_ the building he knew, almost instinctively where it was.

He had _tried _approaching where they _knew_ the building was, set against the largest mountain on Foula it would have made for an impressive sight, _if_ anyone could see it.

Harry wasn't sure if it was a Fidelius Charm, it had the same feeling to it, yet not. They certainly knew where the building was. But getting in was another matter, there was definitely some form of defences, on top of the standard notice me not charms and _very _strong muggle repelling charms there was a _physical_ barrier preventing access. It was like a portion of the Fidelius Charm, the part that hid it from view as Grimmauld Place did, but less so…

Harry wasn't sure how to describe it, he hadn't even tried to anyone but the Brigadier.

In planning their assault they'd decided on brute force, while not subtle it would make a statement and hopefully force the building into real perception and physical space. At the very least it'd force all 'hostile forces' as the Brigadier had put it out into the open.

_Hopefully_ in a state of such panic that _didn't_ lead them to kill their hostages. Harry had left that observation unsaid.

Something twitched in his headphones. He and Captain Yates were both wearing the headphone microphone combinations, he had his down low while he observed the soon-to-be battlefield.

"_They're on approach Raven, 1 minute in-bound."_ Came Yates' voice.

"Battlefield is clear Greyhound 3, Eagles are clear to approach." Harry replied, they'd all be on call signs from this point in.

_Not_ that the enemy would be listening, the enemy was radio silent and had been since they'd discovered the location.

Something _he_ knew, but something the Brigadier wanted or needed noted down in his notes.

Who was going to read his notes Harry wasn't sure. This operation was so top secret it didn't even have a name, it was 'The Operation' as far as all were concerned and after it all notes, reports and anything remotely connected to it was going to be stores in UNIT central command's vaults in Geneva.

He heard them before he saw them; two Hawker Siddeley Harriers didn't quite scream over head, their twin 30 mm cannons firing around what Harry assumed they saw as _just_ a mountain. That was all Captain Yates (Greyhound 3) could see, despite _knowing_ what they knew was there.

Harry watched with an almost curious glee as the projectiles just seemed to 'disappear' into the target area. It wasn't the dead of night, though that did hamper perception, there was just nothing, no impacts, nothing. It was actually quite fascinating.

The planes would swing around the island checking for hostiles and attach three more times into the target area. The goal wasn't to destroy the manor house (or whatever it was, the experts were sure it was a grand sort of house), but rather to 'disrupt the enemy's actions'.

"_Eagle to Greyhound 3, beginning surveillance run, second attack in bound."_

"Received Eagle."

"Anything Raven?" Harry thumbed his radio control as he gazed through the binoculars. There wasn't anything visible effects, but he was sure he saw a rippling of _something._ Near the edge of whatever field it was keeping the house hidden.

"Maybe, nothing certain." Harry replied uncertainly.

"_Eagle 30 seconds in bound."_

"Area safe Raven?" Yates pressed.

Harry gazed out again, he couldn't see anything.

"Safe enough. Second wave and support should be in bound by now." Harry said, that would be their ground troops and support vehicles.

Everything was going according to plan, which was why as soon as he thought that several things literally popped up, sticking their dicks in the proverbial clockwork.

--//

Albus Dumbledore smoothed down his midnight blue cloak, he smiled to himself, he was rather pleased with the "Order of the Phoenix", formed by likeminded wizards concerned about the recent and increasing actions by the "Death Eaters". They had thus far concerned themselves with small to medium sized actions, humble yet forceful.

But this would be their first 'large scale' act.

The letter had been delivered to several offices in the Ministry and the Muggle Prime Minister, while they hadn't been able to find the letter the Aurors had wisely oblivated the Muggle Prime Minister of its arrival, there was nothing the Muggle Parliamentary system could do about this wizarding abduction.

He and Minerva had spent some time to discover the precise location from where the letter had been written from and to make certain that the location was indeed where the Muggle diplomats were being held.

They'd yet to place a useful spy within the Death Eater's ranks, so there was no way to definitely confirm that this was the location, but he was sure of this. It would he hoped show the Muggles that not all wizards were part of the current actions of the Death Eaters and 'Lord Voldemort', despite the recent events.

"Ready Professor?" Fabian Prewett asked to his side. He and his brother had been vocal about helping in the rescue.

"If everyone is assembled?"

"Alice and Frank are distributing potions to everyone Albus." Called Benjy as he walked over to the assembled group.

"Good, very good." Albus rubbed his hands together.

"Warming charms all round I think sir?" Gideon said as he pocketed some potions.

"Very wise my dear boy, very wise. But" Dumbledore held up a hand. "Some spells can have a disastrous effect when combined with other spells, I think tonight we must rely on our clothing to keep us warm and our knowledge and wits to keep us safe." He said looking around those of the order that would be accompanying them on this mission.

Minerva had tried to persuade him not to go. But it had been his idea _to_ go, and he was more than capable, more so than anyone else in fact, he needed to go.

She would 'watch the fort' while he was gone.

"We're ready Professor." Called Frank Longbottom.

"Then," He paused. "We shall depart." He said with a finality and disapparated.

What he suddenly was aware of was the biting cold and was pleased that he had thought to wear appropriate layers of clothing, warming charms could only do so much.

The second thing he almost instantaneously noticed was the noise of an _aircraft_ as it _screamed_ overhead.

Albus watched the sleek craft and mentally compared its likeness to the Messerschmitt Schwalbes that he had seen flying many years ago.

Then they started _firing _he couldn't quite see where, but he _knew_ what they were firing at.

But they shouldn't have known what to fire at, the building was invisible to Muggles.

--//

'Cocked it up big time' was a phrase that jumped to Harry's mind.

"Raven what?"

"Non hostiles Greyhound 3." As he pushed himself away from the front of the dugout.

"Where are you-" Harry cut Yates off.

"To deal with the non-hostiles before they catch their dicks in the fire." Harry said angrily as he switched radio frequencies. "Raven to Greyound Leader, Phoenix, Phoenix, Phoenix" He repeated. He'd mentioned them in passing to the Brigadier, but he never thought they'd turn up here, no one ever mentioned them being on a raid where _muggles_ got involved like this. Unless he was stomping on the preverbial butterfly as he spoke? Something he _really_ didn't have time to thing about now. "Will deal with them, over."

"_Received Raven, understood, Operation will proceed as planned. 8 minutes inbound_."

"Received. Raven Out." Harry turned to look at Yates. "Get the Eagles to swing around and begin the next assault, I will deal with this." Harry said.

Yates looked at Harry in the eyes the only part of his face that was visible, both of them were wearing balaclavas against the cold night wind. He nodded.

Harry raced across the ground, he had easily perfected running with the smaller radio and relay battery pack on his back, the sidearm strapped to his thigh and of course his wand out, even as he ran across the practically open area, he was trying to think of what to say that wouldn't royally bugger up the timestream.

Currently he had nothing.

As he was approaching he heard a roar and not of engine noise, then the night sky was lit up by fire.

Someone had brought dragons to the party.

"Joy." Harry muttered to himself, one guess what they'd been woken up by, and what they were now about to start chasing annoyingly they weren't the same, that would have at least been _a little_ bit helpful, probably not if the dragons attacked the people who had appeared in the middle of all this…but still a little bit of help.

"_Greyhound 3 to Raven-"_

"Eagles have encountered unseen hostiles that are perusing them." Harry cut Yates off.

"_Confirmed, how-?"_ Yates almost sounded like he didn't miss a beat.

"A guess, continue attack run, they shouldn't be able to keep up, tell them to increase their speed of attack run and come in low to disorientate airborne enemy, and I'll think of something once I deal with non-coms on battlefield." Harry said as he breathed in a breath of air, it tasted of grass, jet fuel and fire.

Harry felt the rumble of the Harriers as he was approaching what _had_ to be the Order of the Phoenix who were standing around, _watching_ the Harriers approach and were likely to get shot at.

"Get down, get down!"

--//

Dumbledore looked across the grassy area they had apparated into, trying to judge how fast the muggle planes were approaching them when he noticed a figure, a man by the look of it was shouting at him at _them_.

"…down…Get….down…" He was shouting at the top of his lungs, though it was only just audible over the noise of the wind and the Muggle aircraft.

Dumbledore saw the man throw himself down and shouted out a warning to the other members of the order.

Then two muggle aircraft shot overhead their weapons already firing into the Death Eater's hideout.

Behind them he saw made his eyes widen, a dragon each was following, not quite on their tails but closing fast.

--//

Harry stared up and swallowed eyes wide at how close the dragons were to the Harriers. The Brigadier had asked how much chance that either of the _very expensive_ RAF planes would be damaged. They were here through the cooperation of the RAF, flown by RAF pilots, but the upper brass had _not_ wanted to be briefed, just because of the top secret nature of this mission and the consequences of it should it go 'tits up', if anything was damaged though it was likely UNIT would foot the bill, even with all their power and money that was being thrown at this, two Harriers would still make a sizeable hole in that money.

But their closeness did give him an idea, something he'd seen at an air show.

He was about to thumb the control on his radio, but realised that the Harriers didn't work like that, at least he was relatively sure they couldn't do a 'dump-and-burn'.

Patting around on his jacket he grinned as he felt a pair of flares.

"This isn't going to be dangerous at all." He said to no one in particular as he thumbed the radio control.

"Raven to Eagle, Raven to Eagle respond."

"_Eagle to Raven, receiving." _Came the cool voice of the pilot of one of the crafts, it made Harry smile how cool and collected the pilot sounded.

"Enemy on tail is thermally neutral and visually negative, continue around island for final assault, I need to to put as much distance between you and enemy. Approach my position I will be holding flare, I will paint enemy to be visible." Harry said as he dropped down to a rushed pace rather than a run to where the Order were standing, the Harriers pivoted up, only just clearing the mountain.

"_Received Raven, will alert 5 minutes out from final approach._" Came the calm voice.

"Received Eagle, Out." Harry said and turned to the assembled order.

'You've totally buggered this up' was what he wanted to say, but didn't, he also avoided looking at Dumbledore, it was hard seeing his former Headmaster and friend alive. He knew he was, would be, but still and _here_ and now where he could be injured and royal bend the timeline over backwards and screw it into next Sunday.

"You need to vacate this area now."

"My dear boy I don't think you understand what we're trying to do here." Dumbledore began.

"I understand more than you could conceivably imagine Albus Percival Wulferic Brian Dumbledore, get out now, the muggles have this one."

"You…you know who I am." Dumbledore replied, a statement rather than a question, Harry could see he was searching his face, rather than probing him mentally for signs that he might know him. Harry withdrew his wand, just to show that he was a wizard.

"Friend?" Harry looked over Dumbledore's shoulder at Gideon.

"You over here." He grunted in an unfriendly manner.

"Friend H—"

"No names." Harry grunted grabbing Gideon close to him.

"Friend what…." Harry could see Dumbledore and the others pull out their wands at him. That amused him somewhat, considering where and when he was and what would happen in the future.

"I can't explain everything now and I can't tell Dumbledore anything, I'll explain everything to you and Fabian only and only later." Harry whispered quickly into Gideon's ear. "You need to get them to leave, this isn't just me" Harry could swear he could hear the noise of the helicopters inbound. "You'll only get killed in the crossfire Gideon, _please_ believe me, you need to leave _now_." Harry stepped back and locked eyes with Gideon.

"Alright, the pub, where we last met, a week from now."

"Please, go." Harry pleaded.

Gideon rushed the short distance between them to Dumbledore.

"You're sure my boy?"

"I trust him Professor." Gideon said earnestly.

Albus looked across at the man with the intense eyes he was sure he'd seen before and made the depart motion to the Order.

Then it was just he and the man left on the battlefield.

"I knew you weren't going to leave." The man said gruffly.

"You seem to know several things about me young man, more so than I you." He said studying him.

"If you're going to stay here, know any good spells to light up a dragon?" the man asked casually.

"Well…"

Harry didn't care, it was incredulous, here he was, flare in one hand, wand in the other, Albus Dumbledore, doing the same. He'd radioed the Eagles, they knew there's be two of them, it made their job easier, though it didn't sound like they were having the easiest jobs.

And the timeline? Harry wondered in the back of his mind? What of that? He was standing opposite his headmaster, a man he'd known as a friend, a mentor, a teacher. A man who he knew was to die, like many others he'd come to know here. The difference was he knew Dumbledore, had known him and knew all the particulars of his death.

But it was the present now (or the past depending on perspective), subjective present at any rate.

Harry fancied he could see the pilots, but the Harriers were screaming towards them he barely had time to think, just shoot his spell and the dragon roared past.

It roared even more as both his and Dumbledore's spells splashed across the dragon's belly glaring like magnesium burning into the night. The Harriers broke off their attack and lead the dragons out to sea where they could dogfight them more effectively.

"_Greyhound 1, 3 minutes in bound. Greyhound 4 preparing to support also in bound._" Came Yates' voice.

"Received, non-coms dealt with." Harry replied. "You need to go now Albus." Harry said, a touch of sadness in his voice. Dumbledore was looking past him at the helicopters making their final approach.

"Those flying machines…they'll not make a safe landing here my boy."

"They don't intend to." Harry said. Though they did intend to land, Harry had told the Brigadier as much. Instead they'd already planned to land their troops from the air by rope down.

Then the helicopters would land a shorter distance away, with Greyhound 4; Benton, bringing a small amount of vehicles with no electrics that would provide ground level support.

"Everything's under control Albus, please you need to go, this isn't your fight." Harry said, still not daring to look him in the eye. He was somewhat good at occlumency, something he'd still continued to practise, especially as he still needed to infiltrate Ginny's groups. But he doubted he could withstand a curious Dumbledore.

"And it is yours my dear boy, who are you?"

"Someone who is helping the muggles, someone who knows you shouldn't be here…please" Harry looked at Dumbledore, just not directly at his eyes. "If you stay I can't guarantee your safety."

"This is war my boy, safety is never assured."

"But here and now, you shouldn't be here, this is under _my_ control." And if something goes wrong and you get injured or worse it'll be my fault, my fault for being here, Harry thought to himself.

Dumbledore looked at him for several precious moments.

Harry wished, just a little that Dumbledore would probe his memories, maybe he could then talk to the man…but…that would just cause endless problems.

Dumbledore instead smiled. "Very well my boy, I believe you are sincere in your words. I expect Gideon and Fabian will not tell me anything," He paused and chuckled to himself "even if you do explain to them, something I will not press. Bigger things it seems, on this journey."

"Bigger and more complicated than you could imagine Albus, thank you."

Dumbledore tipped his hat and disappeared with an almost silent 'pop'.

For a few moments Harry marvelled that he had met Dumbledore again, that they had stood side by side in 'battle'. Then Harry the noise of the helicopters was practically overhead.

Then a rope was dropped down at his feet.

First onto the ground was the Brigadier.

"Any sign of them Potter?" He shouted against the noise of the helicopters, Harry shook his head.

Point one to them assuming the 'magic field' petered out at a certain height, though the Harriers had managed not to drop out of the sky the helicopters were staying in one position for an extended period while they dropped the troops.

It was something he decided he'd investigate when I got back to his own time.

Of course, just after they'd managed to get all their troops on the ground the Death Eaters decided to start shooting at them.

"Greyhound 1 to Windmill, land, land, land, enemy is firing on position."

"_Confirmed Greyhound 1 preparing for landing_."

Harry barely had time to dive and push the Brigadier out of the way as several deep green spells came out of the shimmering night. One his a solider by the Brigadier's side.

"Medic!" The Brigadier shouted.

Harry pushed himself up and felt the man's pulse, despite knowing there wouldn't be one.

Harry shut the man's eyes and shook his head at the Brigadier.

"Greyhound 1 to Greyhound 4, covering fire _now_."

"…_ing….pos…n…soon…proaching…"_ Came the static filled reply.

--//

Even Rosier looked out across the lands in front of house, there were _muggles_, muggles had invaded _their_ lands.

The Dark Lord would know of this slight against them!

But first they would rip the muggles to shreds, no matter their _metal_ machines.

Perhaps he could get the others to test Araminta Meliflua's idea of 'muggle hunting', he allowed himself to grin, in the wild.

Bellatrix would likely have enjoyed this were she here.

Evan motioned to the others who had been reinforcing the house after the filthy muggle's attempts to destroy their house. Rookwood would be annoyed if his plan faltered, especially if they failed to get the items for the Dark Lord.

It was something of a good plan, the muggles would scurry to get their minions returned to them…and neither Rookwood nor the Dark Lord had said anything against having some fun with them, they just needed to be in 'good' condition to be returned.

The Professors at Hogwarts were always telling him that he was a good student.

Or at least he imagined they would, if persuaded correctly.

--//

He'd switched to stunners very early in their approach, and had his hand reading on the pistol on his thigh.

_Avada Kedavra_ might be a very efficient way to dispatch someone, but _'Stupefy'_ had fewer syllables.

There was also the issue of 'what if I kill someone whom I had a history with', or more precisely 'what if I kill someone who needs to continue living so they can do whatever they need to do in the future'.

He had had those thoughts before this operation, and he'd tried not to get bogged down on thoughts of them while _in_ battle.

He had absolutely no qualms about killing these bastards, if he killed one of them now, who knew how many would be saved…but he had also had this sort of conversation with the Doctor in the past.

It was a very fine line seeking out people to remove…to kill, to preserve the lives of others, to knowingly kill people to save others. It was just as likely that someone else would take their place, someone just as bad, or worse.

He wasn't thinking about it, not as he fought with UNIT, not consciously, he was thinking and reacting almost instinctively, tuned battle reactions, thinking more about the battle than the wider temporal implications.

Something shot past Harry's right side just within his peripheral vision, he realised it was a rocket shot from a bazooka, part of the reason they were keeping to certain lines as they approached the manor house.

_He_ could make it out now that they were approaching, unfortunately they'd lost radios a short time ago.

Obviously Benton was just continuation fire. He'd stop when someone fired off an orange flare, when they eventually reached the manor house.

Harry made a diagonal line to the Brigadier who, like the others was slowing in his forward assault.

"Brigadier."

"Potter…" He said vaguely.

"Remember, it's just an illusion." Or something. Harry mentally added.

"An…illusion…yes…" Harry wondered if he needed to slap the Brig.

"Alistair, we're here on a mission, come on man!" Harry said shaking the Brigadier.

"What? Yes! Of Course. Right, men! Full ahead!"

Harry was sure that was an order a sea captain gave…but it needn't matter. The rate of fire _at _them had slowed significantly and they were making headway.

--//

Rosier went pushed his way through the rubble into the house. There was a…he felt like spitting…a _wizard_. A wizard helping the filthy muggles rats.

He would leave his fellow Death Eaters to deal with them, he needed to report to his Master.

--//

"_Alohomora_." Harry said from the side of the door and shoved it open for the UNIT troops, most of whom still seemed somewhat in awe that there was a building before them.

Harry allowed them in first to take down any opposition.

Typically the hostages were in the cellar.

Thankfully none of them were dead. Though some of them Harry suspected grimly probably wished they were, many of them were exhibiting the vague expression of being stunned and oblivated too many times.

Harry set to work with the medics, releasing each one one was strung up and to lay those who couldn't walk, or were barely lucid onto streatchers.

"Potter." The Brigadier called him over. "My men have secured the enemy." Harry raised an eyebrow, how long would it take for…his thoughts were interrupted. "But they disappeared."

"Your men?"

"My prisoners." Harry didn't react to this revelation.

The Brigadier pulled him out of the cellar. "You knew."

"Yes, Brigadier I knew." Harry said. "There's nothing I could have reasonably done to prevent it. It's something that didn't occur to me." Harry said looking to that Brigadier. At least half of his sentence was true. _There wasn't_ anything he could have done.

"The choppers are powering up, looks like there's a storm brewing."

"The enemy is likely regrouping Brigadier." Harry said as he looked out the window, the wind was kicking up, rather unnaturally, that was worrying.

The helicopter was shaking _quite_ a lot. Harry peered out the window, they were the last ones to leave, the other two helicopters had already left, as had the ferry carrying the UNIT vehicles, though Benton had stayed behind, to wait for him and the Brigadier.

"_We're clear sir._" Said the pilot's voice over his and he assumed the Brigadier's headsets.

The Brigadier took out a control box and pushed down the two buttons. There was a flash on the mountainside.

"You do rather enjoy blowing things up Brigadier."

"_All in a day's work Potter."_

--//

"_Potter, the ferry carrying our vehicles has just been attacked by a 'sea monster'" _Harry looked over at the Brigadier.

"Survivors?"

"_HMS Plymouth_ _is engaging" _The Brigadier pause as the helicopter hit an air pocket_ "…in rescue operations._" Came the Brigadier's respose.

"Engaging Brigadier? Something you didn't tell me about Brigadier?" Harry looked over at the UNIT's commanding officer. He'd not told Harry anything about the _Plymouth_ being around during any of their discussions.

"_A little insurance Mr Potter is always nessecary when planning an operation this size." _

"And I knew what I needed to know Brigadier. I would, as your advisor, suggest the _Plymouth_ not linger."

"_The captain knows how to run his ship Mr Potter, but I will pass on your suggestions."_

Harry just shrugged his shoulders and nodded. Major internation crisis averted, not just his temporal issue to finish.

--//

Harry looked around him, in daylight it looked much different, the earth was blackened, there was signs of fire.

But there were no bodies.

He'd thought that was the end of it, that he'd done his job and lead the Brigadier to get the hostages, but the Brigadier had _asked_ that he return, to ensure that it was safe for UNIT personnel to come in and fix up Foula, together with the British armed forces, plus search for the people who made up Foula's small population, find those who'd been oblivated and those who had been killed.

But first they needed to make sure it was safe.

"You alright Benton?" Harry asked, there still appeared to be a powerful muggle repelling charm around the remains of the manor house. Though Harry wondered to himself if someone had re-applied it, or was it just a result of the house being destroyed by whatever explosives the Brigadier had used.

"They must have collected the bodies." Benton said to him.

"Or anyone that was shot was only wounded."

"Or they were raised from the dead." Harry couldn't tell from Benton's tone if he was joking or not.

"No, that's reserved for only the very special bastards."

"No, that's reserved for only the very special bastards." Evan watched the wizard who was with the muggles. The man had been there on _the night_. The man was using his wand openly in front of the muggles he noted to himself.

The muggle reppelling charm was still in place though, no matter that the murdering muggles had a wizard with them. It sickened him that a wizard had lowered himself to accompany muggles.

But this man was obviously powerful, Evan could see that, it would pay perhaps for the Dark Lord _not_ to know about this man.

Evan spared the muggles and the wizard one last glance, considering the possibility of just springing them all up like chickens, but that was something Bellatrix was far better at.

--//

_A/N:_

_Apologies for this again late chapter (though it is much longer than previous chapters!)._

_This bulk of this chapter takes as the Doctor and Jo leave for Peladon (__The Curse of Peladon)__, which is why the Doctor isn't around for any of this._

_All the people who accompany Dumbledore are Order members who end up dead in the first war. So any of them seeing Harry this time doesn't really matter, timeline wise. Except Dumbledore and well, it's Dumbledore._

_I hadn't planned on having Harry and Dumbledore meet quite as much as they did. _

_What I had planned was the planes were going to do a 'dump and burn', a fuel dump and then burn it, burning the dragons, except I couldn't work out which planes the RAF had in the 70s and any that'd be able to do it, the first generation Harriers were around at that time thus they're used. (Also Harrier "jump jets" are a relatively imaginable plane when you're reading this (hopefully), more so than other planes). _

_But it's a great image I think; Harry and Dumbledore standing next to one another staring into the face of Harriers rumbling towards them flare and wand high in the air. As far as Harry and Dumbledore meeting…well Harry doesn't say his name, has a balaclava on and…it's Dumbledore he's got mountains of secrets. _

_Evan Rosier is a Death Eater who was killed by Moody near the end of the first war. As such he's one of a handful of Death Eaters who can see Harry while he's in the past without any issues for the future. _

_A sequence I had planned but it didn't work was; Harry and the Brigadier discussing leaks in UNIT and Harry coming up with a 'quick' idea to find the leak, he'd use a stick (rather than his wand) and walk along all the members of UNIT HQ saying 'Avada Kedavra', the Brig would watch from a camera somewhere and whoever flinched at the word would be the spy. Obviously the spy would just apparate away and even if he was caught what would UNIT do with him (even if they could restrain him)._

_So the sequence I came up with to replace this one was a more action orientated one that would have gone in the middle of this chapter during Harry's researching, but again in starting to write it the ideas and the layout of how these things would happen wasn't gelling together for me. Basically he was going to be accosted in the electron microscope room and get into a spell fight with a wizard, Harry stabs him with something preventing him from leaving but is shot with a spell himself, he escapes some UNIT troops shoot the wizard. Then they're not sure who he was either a spy for the Ministry or Voldemort. Which was more ambiguous, but it still didn't flow together for me. _


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25**

Alistair warmed his hands with the mug of tea, against the early morning chill of the day. There had been several early mornings and late nights, even following the success of 'the Operation'.

Clearing up Foula following Mr Potter's assessment of the land was going according to plan with mental health experts coming in from the UN to assist with those of the population who _hadn't_ been murdered. But those who had been left still bore the scars of an occupation both mental and physical.

The situation with the ambassadors was something of a mixed bag affair, UNIT and his command had been largely praised for rescuing them unharmed.

But there was still the issue of them being kidnapped in the first place and being held within the United Kingdom, he suspected there was still some large politicking going on behind the scenes, both in the normal and magical spheres.

Potter had warned him this was likely to be only the start.

That was why he had continued to maintain the surveillance of "Borgin & Burkes", the shop Potter had asked monitored. Potter seemed to have forgotten about it, consumed by his own task, something Alistair made a note to himself to offer any further assistance her could for the man.

The intelligence was interesting, but difficult to decipher without context, but in time hopefully they would create a fine amount of intelligence. Perhaps, to avert any further incidents. He knew that Potter wouldn't be around forever, he had said that on his arrival, at the time it did not seem such an issue, now he felt like an integral part of his command.

Potter had though, given them something to build from, and bullets _did_ work. Not just bullets. He was awaiting the RAF's full analysis of their report into their 'encounter' with the _enemy_, missiles also functioned, though there were some issues with targeting.

If they ever had to address an enemy such as a flying beast that breathed fire they would need to adjust their tactics somewhat.

Nevertheless it had been a successful mission, it almost seemed normal to be considering tactics for fighting a dragon.

Walking up to his office door he tensed, he'd locked the door when he'd left to get his morning mug of tea and turned out the light.

Yet the door was ajar and the light on.

Removing his revolver he placed his mug of tea on the filing cabinet outside his office and gently pushed open the door.

The sight inside didn't surprise him.

"Ah Brigadier, _what_ have you been up to during my rather unplanned absence?"

-/

Harry tied the boat he'd leased and grabbed his jacket and walked purposefully along the jetty.

His meeting with Gideon and Fabian would be happening later in the week. His terrorist gathering was on hold until even later in the week, as last night he'd attended a location where there was supposedly a meeting but _only_ once a week, so whoever it was would be his next…would be the next one, and one more closer to Ginny.

Straightening his tie once more he walked up toward the entrance to Fortress Island, or more to the point the administration block.

He'd cast a very low powered notice me not spell, just enough to (hopefully) give him an air of mystery.

"Mr James, how good to see you." Harry gripped the man's hand hardish and shook it vigorously.

"Colonel Trenchard, how very good to meet you face to face, I am sorry about all the 'cloak and dagger' palaver, but you know…" Harry said and wondered if he was laying it on a bit thick.

"Yes, yes, of course, you'll be wanting to see the prisoner then?"

"Yes." Harry nodded. "I have my questions to put to him, UNIT wouldn't let _us_ near him."

"Scared of the information he might know, what?" Trenchard continued.

"Indeed." Harry said, he'd only called Trenchard twice before, the second time had been yesterday evening. But Trenchard seemed to have an underlying paranoia to him. Which considering that was how he'd been manipulated by Magister it seemed the best thing to play on.

Harry stared at the fencing foils outside the Magister's cell and suddenly recalled the Doctor telling him about the 'fight' he and the Master would have, with those very foils. A very good story teller, the Doctor, but it was becoming somewhat odd, seeing it all, just that little thing.

"Mr James?"

"Sorry Colonel, a moment of Déjà vu."

"Oh, that happens, as the older you get the more things….it's this way."

He looked up from his book as the door opened and the fool Trenchard bustled in, really, the tea lady at UNIT was more efficient than the oaf Trenchard.

But far easier to manipulate. Loyalty was hard to break, but paranoia could go a long way especially if they thought they 'were doing the right thing', if he had to suffer this small indignity at the British government's expense than so be it.

"My, my," He paused. "Harry, you do get around."

"My, my," Magister started to say. Harry mouthed 'Harry' to the Magister, as it was likely he'd have called him 'Mr Potter'. "Harry, you do get around."

"Well I'll stay-"

Harry cut off Trenchard. "If you could leave me to speak Colonel, security and all that, _we_ have to make sure no one is listening and all that." Trenchard looked over to him for a moment and nodded.

"Right, yes, very good, knock on the door and my guards will let you leave when it's time to go."

Harry watched as the door was shut.

"_He's_ your jailer?" Harry asked incredulously as he unbuttoned his jacket and sat down, removing a jamming device from his pocket and pushed it across the table.

"You've made some improvements." Magister said turning the gaffer-tape covered box over in his hands, once more, Harry found it odd, to see him _not_ wearing leather gloves. "So are you here at the Brigadier's sufferance my dear Harry?"

Harry shook his head. "The Brigadier doesn't know where I am, the Doctor's off on a little jaunt."

"Really? For the Time Lords no doubt." Magister asked.

"Likely." Harry agreed.

"So why have you come to see a _criminal_ such as myself?" Magister asked leaning back in his chair.

"I though I'd drop in a bolster Trenchard's paranoia a bit, a visiting agent of an unnamed agency meeting you someone imprisoned by the UN. Just give the process a bit of a push along."

"You _are_ well informed." Magister replied curiously.

Harry smiled. "Plus I needed something of a break, there's nothing much in the way of my mission."

"Except your concern for those who you will leave behind." Magister surmised.

"Am I that transparent Magister?" Harry asked with a sigh he reached into his jacket and rolled a cigar across the table.

Magister raised an eyebrow at him. "It was amongst some of your affects recovered from the Stangmoor Prison. UNIT likes to keep _everything_."

"Should I ask Mr Potter what you were doing rifling through UNIT's evidence rooms?"

"Pilfering some goods that might come in useful Magister, why else?" Harry said with a smile as Magister removed a lighter from about his person and lit the cigar.

Harry stood to leave. "Anything I can get you?"

"Aside from my freedom?" Harry gave Magister a look. "A visit from my dear friend the Doctor and Miss Grant."

Harry smiled. "I'm sure than can be arranged."

"Till next we meet Harry." Magister said rising from the table as the door opened and the guards tensed.

"So…?" Trenchard asked as Harry refused the man's offer of a drink it was still rather early in the day for spirits.

"So…." Harry repeated. "So…" He said again. "He does know…." Harry wondered how many trailing sentences he could start.

"Ah…I see." Trenchard said leaning into his chair.

"You see…" Harry repeated and wondered if obliviating and leaving would be too risky.

"Operational security old chap, I know a think or two about you old boys. Can't have too many people in the loop, especially with _those_ UNIT people sticking their noses in."

"Yes. Quite right Colonel, you're an asset to this place."

Trenchard sat up a little straighter, unfortunately spilling his whiskey. "Yes, of course. Right."

Harry took the man's moment of fluster to stand. "Well Colonel I need to be going, reports to file, you know drill and all, agents to find…"

Trenchard's eyes lit up at the mention of 'agents'. "Yes, very good, I'll have one of my men see you to the jetty." He said pressing a button on his phone.

-/

Alistair watched as the Doctor flipped through the surveillance report _and _polish off his second round of sandwiches despite him stating that he wouldn't have _any_.

"Well, well, well Brigadier. _You_ have been busy during my brief absence hmm?"

"Needs must Doctor." Alistair said taking a bit of his own sandwich that he'd made sure was beside him out of the Doctor's reach. "Mr Potter was very useful throughout the situation."

The Doctor remained silent whilst he read through the documents. "You don't mind Brigadier if I keep these? I'd like to check through them more thoroughly."

Alistair tried not to smile too warmly, he had an extra set in his desk, he been expecting the Doctor to turn up at some point wanting (or likely demanding) to know what was going on.

Potter had also noted the Doctor would do something to the same effect on their helicopter ride away from Foula.

-/

Benton walked into the pub, a letter held in his hand, in his other hand a flash grenade. Potter's instructions had been clear, there were likely operatives everywhere in the pub, if any of them drew their _wands_ drop the grenade and run.

He'd seen what these people's enemies had done to some of his men, he wasn't going to argue with the expert.

Moody eyed the door as a muggle walked in.

"We could stun him, find out what he knows." He muttered to Albus.

"I am simply curious Alastor." Dumbledore said sipping his third pint of the day. Albus had taken great delight suggesting that he should take the role of 'barman' leaving the headmaster to be a 'punter'. The rest of the Order were spread around the bar, but there were a few muggle 'regulars' who wouldn't be moved, despite the few charms he'd laid around.

"The Prewett brothers should've known better."

"We don't know anything. But there was something about the man I met…" The headmaster trailed off, staring into the murky depths of his pint glass as a seer would tea leaves.

Captain Mike Yates looked around the bar; this was his third day 'undercover'. It had been suggested by Potter, through the Brigadier, to observe how the 'opposition' as Potter had explained with something like amusement or possibly cynicism. The pub's patrons and staff had been practically replaced earlier the previous day, also the barman's stature, body language and voice had all changed, despite looking the same, it was as though someone were wearing a full mask and had duplicated his clothes. Though _not_ how the Master did it, this was something…_wrong_.

Much like most of the bar, it had taken considerable concentration to merely walk through the door yesterday, but it had eased somewhat today.

It was like the other bar Potter had first gone to _and_ the location on Foula. All this, it was _worse _in some ways than UNIT's 'normal' fare. This ate at you at some primal instinctual level, it _made_ you want to talk away. It _made_ you want to go away and shower whatever it was off you…and yet…and yet it was all in the mind, like ghosts of the past or something.

Mike made a point only to gaze vaguely as Benton walked in, _not_ hiding the flash grenade in his hand, though he held it at his said almost casually, though held so he could pull the pin quickly. As Yates expected the Sergeant would.

Benton looked around the pub carefully and careful not to make eye contact with _anyone_, especially _not_ the man with the long beard at the bar, Potter had warned him especially not to make any contact with him.

He saw his 'targets' waiting expectantly at a table, two untouched pints in front of him.

Benton offered them the letter in his other hand.

Alastor tensed.

"Only a letter my dear Alastor, it seems our mysterious friend is cautious." He said with some amusement in his voice.

"You knew he would do this?" He grunted.

"Fabian and Gideon are mature enough to be a good judge of character. This provided a good training exercise for the Order to gain some skills in surveillance and we may still learn something Alastor. Patience has its own rewards."

Gideon looked up at the man in the muggle uniform as he handed him the letter.

It was a standard muggle envelope, but the letter inside appeared to have been written with a fine quill on good parchment.

_Fabian, Gideon, _

_I would ask that you go with the Sergeant, he's a friend of mine. _

_He will take you to where you will find me. _

_I am sure the pub is crawling with members of the Order. _

_I am also sure that they would like to have a chat with me. _

_If you do not wish to converse with me, please indicate this to the Sergeant and he will depart. _

_Yours sincerely,_

_Your friend, Harry._

Gideon looked at Fabian and placed the paper on the table. The professor would want to look at it.

_Then_ the paper started to smoke and words appeared at the bottom of the page.

_PS. If I've got my charms right when this touches a wooden surface it should burn to ash…hopefully not taking the table with it…_

Benton maintained a straight face, Potter had told him 'something' like that would happen. Benton wondered if Potter liked _Mission Impossible_.

Fabian looked over at Gideon who shrugged and nodded. Fabian looked up at the man, the 'Sergeant' and nodded.

Benton smiled slightly and walked out, the two men following him.

"I'm getting my broom. Alice, Frank you're with me." He muttered gruffly.

"Do remember Alastor to use a _cloak_ we do not want the Ministry asking questions." The headmaster said lightly as he drained his glass and strode towards the table where the letter had rapidly turned into a find ash.

"A curious piece of spell work, I do believe."

Yates watched as the group seemed to rush into action and the pub emptied.

"And you. Did you find it enlightening?" Said the man with the long beard who was proding the remains of the ash on the table.

Yates didn't look at the man directly, put kept his hand on the pistol he'd brought with him as he edged he way toward the side door that he'd made sure to unlock.

Benton looked in the rear view mirror, the two men were sitting watching the world go past and would occasionally look through the back of the Land Rover out behind them.

Benton couldn't see anything in the side or rear view mirrors, _not_ that that meant much.

Moody cursed as the green muggle car turned another corner and he barely missed a smaller muggle car.

Frank and Alice seemed to be _enjoying_ this. It would be much easier just to cast _Aresto Momentum _on the muggle vehicle and oblivate the muggle of the whole business.

_However_ as they passed the same building for the second time he was suspecting that the muggle may not be going anywhere.

Benton turned the corner _again_ simple tactics to test if they were being followed, but a bit more of this and he'd be able to take them to their destination.

After a few more loops and seemingly 'random' changes in direction Benton abruptly turned the steering wheel sharply driving down into and undercover garage, a metal roller door clanging down, blocking anyone who may have been following their path.

Moody cursed as the vehicle changed course suddenly disappearing into…he turned the corner, a dead end, with two muggles with _guns_.

Benton opened the door of the Land Rover.

"Over there." Benton said pointing to a corner of the garage that he was fighting hard to look at.

Potter said he'd put something there to make sure his 'targets' knew it was placed there by him, something magic that stopped him seeing it.

He merely needed to light a small fuse 5 minutes after he arrived, his targets would depart somehow. Potter hadn't explained and he'd known better not to ask.

Fabian looked over to where the Sergeant had indicated.

"He was obviously doing all that to loose Moody." He muttered as he mirrored what Gideon was doing and removed his wand.

"A muggle repelling charm and a very minor notice me not charm." Gideon said tapping as he gestured with his wand into the air.

"Look." Fabian muttered. On the concrete wall was a map and a note written on it.

_Gideon, Fabian,_

_Sorry for all the cloaked stuff, but I suspect it was necessary, or perhaps not, maybe __**I'm**__ the only paranoid one here. _

_A map to where I'll meet you and explain many things, I believe you know how to apparate based on a map, you got to Foula. _

_Your friend, Harry._

It looked like a small village, an X had been placed a short distance away from the village some distance from the church.

"Well, should we go?" Gideon looked to his brother.

"I'm too curious not to."

Benton only turned around after the 5 minutes were up, the two men had gone. He walked over to where the fuse was and lit it and then took the stairs up to the ground level to report to the Brigadier.

Five minutes later two men apparated into the space to find more ash and an empty muggle vehicle.

Dumbledore chuckled. "I do believe this man has some experience with this Alastor."

"Signs of a muggle repelling charm and maybe a notice me not charm." He replied tapping his wand against the concrete, where there were some scorch marks. "And something burnt."

"With muggle incendiaries. Curious, that he would use a complicate charm, yet…" Alastor could tell the headmaster was smiling without looking at him.

"What?"

"The military man who accompanied the brothers, he set this off, our mystery man is likely waiting elsewhere. Perhaps these" he gestured the ash with his foot. "were apparition directions to where he is."

"Received greyhound 4, thanks for all your help. Raven out." Harry pushed down the aerial and put the radio into his pocket and waited, he needn't wait long.

Two pops of displaced air and two young men were standing before him.

"Gideon, Fabian, glad you could make it." He said with a smile.

"Aliens did that?" Gideon stared across the village green at the remains of the church.

Harry nodded as he sipped his pint. It had seemed the best way to explain, to meet in Devil's End, a nice big example of alien's work.

"And you're working with people who stopped them?" Fabian repeated what Harry'd already explained to them. Harry nodded.

"But that's not the whole story." Gideon asked, watching him.

"No."

"Because you knew about the Order." Gideon looked at him.

"And you know Dumbledore, but you've never been to Hogwarts, no one knows you here."

Harry smiled, but his smile turned slightly sad.

He had decided to tell them, a selected part of the truth.

Dumbledore would be the only one to truly challenge them on anything.

"I will tell you why I'm here, but not who I am and I will tell you something to tell Dumbledore." Harry paused to sip his pint and continued watching them seriously. "I'm telling you because you're my friends and I trust you, I trust you not to tell anyone or let it be told."

The brothers looked at him, slightly worried as he cast a range of privacy charms around the table, they were sitting outside and a fair way from the Devil's Hoof pub. Despite the initial elation at the destruction of Azal and the heat barrier's dissipation the village still felt the destruction of the church that had stood so many hundreds of years in their village.

"I'm from the future. I've travelled back to this point to remove certain terrorists from my own time from this era because of the danger they pose. I am acting with my era's Ministry's approval." Harry said carefully in a level tone that implied no argument or humour.

Gideon and Fabian watched him as he continued. "Tell Dumbledore that he can't find out who I am, but _when_ I am from he is on the next great adventure."

"The next great adventure?" Fabian asked curiously with a smile.

"Albus will know what I mean." Harry replied calmly, not matching the intensity of Fabian's smile, though still smiling; in remembrance of his old headmaster, whatever adventures he might be on. Then he waited for the onslaught of questions that would inevitably come when you told someone you were from another time, almost another world.

But the brothers surprised him, with none, just thoughtful introspection.

Perhaps it was Arthur's side of the family that brought the temper and the madness into the family? Harry thought to himself. It had been Arthur who'd got into a fight with Lucius back in the day…

"I feel, friend that I should ask about us in the future." Gideon asked after some time of silence.

Harry opened his mouth to answer but was cut off. "But, friend, I think that you would not say." Gideon continued.

"I wouldn't, it's messy enough me being here." Harry admitted.

"Friend, and telling us this? You could have said nothing." Fabian said curiously.

"You're my friends, if I can't trust you with something like this…?" Harry said, hoping his voice wouldn't catch. Their futures were short, but…that was in the hands of Time. He was in the present, even if it were his past, it was the present for him and them.

Harry shook his head. "There aren't enough tenses in the English language for this." He muttered to himself.

-/

"'_The next great adventure_.' Those exact words Gideon?"

"Yes sir." Gideon said, it was just himself, Fabian and the Headmaster.

"Very well Fabian, Gideon. I believe you have a very good judge of character. I will not press you for any more information on your friend." He said smiling to the brothers, neither met his line of sight.

After they departed Minerva and Alastor re-entered the room.

"I believe them." He announced to them.

"Because of one sentence Albus? What does it mean?" Minerva wondered.

"That the man knows me, yet I have never met him. It is a puzzle. But both brothers have returned safely, neither has been polyjuiced."

"And their secrets?" Alastor asked looking towards the door the brothers had departed through.

"Remain tied to their friendship with the man Alastor, he helped avert a grievance with the muggles and saved us from making a grave mistake in the eager pursuit to help the muggles, I believe we must reassess the situation." He said to the pair. "This is likely to get much worse before a resolution presents itself." Albus said somewhat to himself.

-/

Ginny carefully poured the potion into the vials her Patron had provided her. It had not been the easiest potion to make, though if Hermione had been able to concoct it when she was in her second year, it should have been no trouble for her now.

She was however concerned about providing the Patron with the potion, it was a powerful useful potion, especially in the hands of a muggle, even one as knowledgeable and morally wise as he was. But…she had changed her mind…she needed him, as he required her assistance.

She looked up as the _phone_ rang, she remembered her father being so very fascinated with these muggle communication devices. In some ways there was something quaint and simple about using the _phone_, almost too simple, there was something to be said for writing a letter than twirling your fingers around on a dial, or being able to see and hear someone through the fire. Using this _telephone_ even though it lacked the numbers was a far less involved experience, as though the muggles were trying to make you feel _less_ human.

She hated that about them sometimes, not to the levels of wanting them _dismissed_ from reality, but their ability to cut themselves off from _real_ things. Just like the wizards' and muggles' belief in _aliens_, creating fantasies about "creatures" from other worlds to explain the simple effects of the wizarding life and the magical world.

Their minds reject things they can't understand and instead came up with a fantasy world of aliens.

That fantasy world was something that was at the moment and would become ever more so a danger to their world, and to a lesser extent the muggle population.

But, the muggles could have their mass delusion in their beliefs in 'creatures from other worlds' as long as they didn't spread their deviancy to her world.

"Yes Patron, I've just finished. Yes Patron. I'll be up in a moment." She replaced the _phone_ in its cradle.

He watched as she walked into the room. Almost like a soldier, her movements were precise, ordered.

The use of the control device recovered from the Shoreditch Incident on her a second time had been a calculated response, especially given the amount of drugs needed to slip her into a suggestible state the first time.

But now that he understood her morals and her moral duty it proved far more effective and required much less use of the specialised psychotropics and mental manipulations methods to persuade Ms Weasley to form in line with her 'Patron'.

Though his medical department had been somewhat concerned about her expiring, their concern was not required, these wizards were far more resilient than their susceptibility to bullets suggested. It was also what made them dangerous and useful to the country, amongst several other things.

But Ms Weasley and her status as an extra-temporal agent meant she had been exposed to far more elements of the world, even _alien_ elements, despite her disbelief that such things existed.

Her knowledge of events to come however was far more lacking, despite the rigorous extraction methods they had utilised against her they had only extracted a small amount of usable information.

No, she was far more usable when she believed she was using him, plus her own efforts were a useful social destabilising agent of an ancillary social-political element.

"I have an assignment for you Ms Weasley, I know you have matters you wish to attend to. But this is something I need answers to."

Ginny tried not to show her surprise at the Patron's request. He seemed quite insistent about needing her to find out any information about this attack on Foula.

"This is a military base?" She asked as she looked at the map he had spread out on his desk.

"Yes." He paused thinking. "They attacked an outpost on Foula, they're unit of military and other people. The rooms where the information is likely to be kept is indicated."

"Why can't your associates get in if hey got you this information?" She asked, somewhat boldly, but she thought she'd earnt his…not his trust per se, but some leeway at least in how she dealt with him.

The mental control had obviously boosted her confidence somewhat, he smiled at her. Confidence was a usable quality.

"My associates are not as covert as you are Ms Weasley."

-/

Harry spat out a mouth of water and closed his eyes as he let the hot water of the UNIT showers cascade over his aching body.

Another of Ginny's little bunch was no more. _She_ had not gone quietly and had indeed tried to Avada Kadavra him several times. _She_ was also rabid for Ginny's cause. The most he'd gotten out of her was spit in the eye and her trying to disapparate through his hastily erected disapparition spell, he was relatively sure she went through it as he cast the spell.

Harry opened his eyes, staring into the water from the old copper shower had, letting the droplets of water his his eyes, his face…

Another set of clothes ruined, despite numerous cleaning charms.

_She'd _known who he was, that didn't change how hard she'd tried to poison, torture or kill him. She'd been almost as rabid as the mad cow Weasley herself. _Almost._

The woman was now as dead as the others he'd _dealt_ with.

Harry closed his eyes as a shiver passed through his body, despite the seemingly never-ending supply of hot water that cascaded down his scarred frame.

The look on the woman's face as she tried to disapparate, it was a look of pure loathing and hatred at him…and then she just…exploded, showing him and the area around him with her blood, bone and…whatever else.

Harry reached for the soap and lathered up his body and hair and grabbed the comb, just to check once more for fragments of bone.

It was relatively empty at the base, so it surprised and made him suspicious as he caught sight of a woman walking down a corridor heading directly to the room opposite his lab where the electron microscope was held, it was also where his portion of the research was being collated and secured so he could have his lab clear and focused once more on his task.

The door to the room with the electron microscope was locked, padlocks, draw bolts and even a few locks _he'd_ added to the inside, he'd told the Brigadier, just not _how_ he'd added them to a room with no windows, the Brigadier didn't ask, he just took the information on board.

But now the figure, he was sure was a woman, despite the cap she was wearing opened the door with little trouble.

"Raven to Greyhound 2, come in." Harry hissed into the radio.

Benton's voice came through almost immediately, though sounded slightly surprised. "_Greyhound 2 receiving over."_

"Intruder in _secure_ Research lab 5, repeat intruder Research lab 5."

"_Received Raven, 45 seconds. Will secure perimeter._ _Out."_

Less than 30 seconds later Sergeant Benton ran up beside the corridor where Harry was waiting watching the corridor down from the door.

"My men will approach the door from the other side. Who do you think they are?"

"Not they, one female. Bypassed all the locks, even the ones _**I**_ added."

"That's where all your stuff is isn't it?" Benton asked as he passed Harry a rifle and a pistol in a holster, both of which he took. While he did have his wand there were a few residual potion elements inside the room, if he started firing off any dangerous spells things could happen…although…

Harry took out his wand and aimed it at the room, dragging his wand through the complex patterns and wished that he'd paid more attention to the complexities of the anti-disapparition spell, it probably didn't help matters that he was tired and had had several poisonous and torturous spells thrown at him earlier in the night.

Benton looked at him like he was about to ask something. "Don't ask, it's just in case." Harry looked to Benton's other men, some of them he didn't immediately recognise, that either meant they were new or hadn't been part of the Foula operation, hopefully there wouldn't be any issues.

"Let's go see who's playing breaking and enter." Harry said as he checked the weapon and readied himself.

"Lethal force?" Benton asked quietly.

Harry nodded. "Everything in there is above top secret."

Benton made a motion to his men on the other end of the corridor and they ran up and into the room.

"Oh shit." Ginny said as she turned around.

"Oh shit indeed Ms Weasley." Harry said. "Notice-me-not charm. I'd just shoot straight ahead Sergeant." Harry said offhandedly. "Funny seeing you here Ginny!" Harry exclaimed sarcastically.

"Harry Potter, you bastard. The boy-who-lived chasing little me across all time, perusing your little delusions. You don't even have the morality to face me as a wizard. You're pathetic!" She spat, aiming her wand at him.

Benton heard the voice of a woman and concentrated through the…whatever it was. A figure seemed to come as a mirage out of a corner between the shelving that wasn't there, a corner that shouldn't have been present on an oblong shaped shelf. She seemed to be hiding in the pointed end of the shelf, which couldn't exist.

"Oh, you wound me Ginny. Really?" Harry shook his head. "I've had chats with Voldemort you silly stupid bitch." Harry almost shouted. "You're shitting your way through our bloody history!" He did shout, and tighten his finger in the trigger of his gun. But…he still made a promise, he still had to _try_ to bring he still owed it to George, despite his desire to shoot the mad cow and get this over and done with.

"**OUR **history Potter, **OUR** history. We make the world, we _change_ it, we change and manipulate perception, that's what your _sickness_ is your little deviancy is _believing_ in it. You've become too close to these people, you're not seeing our…"

"Superiority, manipulate the lesser muggles, reinvent our civilisation, unimaginable power, unlimited pumpkin juice. Et cetera! Et cetera!" He replied sarcastically.

"You forget Potter, I'm the one holding a wand." She said calmly. She looked around at the room. "I could modify the memories of all these muggles, they would continue about their lives as if nothing were wrong, they would go on believing in _aliens_. Wizarding lives would be spared the carnage of the muggle world."

"How far into insanity have you gone Ginny, that you would forget what atrocities Voldemort committed. _Will_ commit." Harry shook his head.

"_You're_ talking about morals Harry Potter, how many people have you killed, how many of _my_ people have you 'dispatched'?" She paused. "_Crucio_!" Harry fought very hard not to shout, crumple to the floor or make any noise. When she lifted the curse he was vaguely aware he'd bitten his lip, _hard_. He was also aware of the clicks of the safeties of on guns being removed.

"It seems you've learnt a thing or two about torture Ginevra. How about you…" Harry took a moment to swallow some of the spittle and blood accumulating in his mouth. Being tortured once in one night by one crazy bitch was bad enough, twice was just bad luck. Or what his life had become, how he longed for…his old life.

"How about I…what Harry, seems you're not as powerful as you think? Death isn't your sport after all?" She asked in what Harry assumed was a teasing tone, it sounded more nasally, like she'd had something rammed where she thought the sun shinned out of.

Harry flicked the safety off of his own weapon, he noticed out of the corner of his eye Benton nodded slightly and moved to be ready to shoot.

"Come quietly Ms Weasley and we can forget about all this." Harry said in what he hoped was a level tone, in his head it sounded more like 'Die you crazy dragon-rooting bitch' but torture did tend to play tricks on the mind, _maybe_ he did say that.

Ginny raised her wand. "An anti-disapparition spell Harry. Tsk, Tsk, Tsk." Ginny kept her wand on him, but her face was full of concentration.

"Ginny. Don't."

"Don't give me orders Harry Potter." She said in a level warning tone.

"I'll shoot." He said, matching her level tone.

"You would have done it already Harry." She smiled at him. "You always did have a problem with shooting when the time was right."

"Fire." Harry said and started shooting as did the men around him.

The expression was of surprise on Ginny's face as at least 5 bullets tore into her body as she disapparated, showing them with bodily fluids, mostly blood, and left the remains of her left foot and two fingers behind.

Harry vaguely heard two of the men throwing up behind him as he pushed the blood splatter out of his hair, again.

"Get your men cleaned up." Harry said as he scooped the appendages into a spare box. "I'm taking these to the medical lab. Make sure you keep all the fluids, they might be useful." Harry kept his tone level, but passed the rifle off to Benton as he tried to walk off the shakes induced by the _Cruciatus curse_. Ginny really did have a lot of hate to go around.

-/

_A/N:_

_The revelation to the Gideon and Fabian might seem a little rushed and lacking in long drawn out explanations. But explanations like that are somewhat boring (to read and write), as it's just a summary of everything we already know. The same goes for Harry and Magister's conversations, they happen, but writing them out (and making them sound __**right**__ is long and tedious), 'unless it moves the plot along' and all that. _

_As for Dumbledore's reaction. This is still early-ish into the war, Dumbledore will go through a lot more heartache throughout it before it ends. At this point I think Dumbledore's still somewhat trusting and not going to break out the Legillimancy at every opportunity. There's also no Snape around to do his dirty work. _

_There is one clue to who the Patron is, it's fairly random and quite obscure. _


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26**

Harry got out of the Land Rover and paused looking around, his hand going to the pistol within his pocket. The people around him didn't give him a second look. It was odd, being out, in the day time.

Out doing his _job_. Harry looked down the street and sighed as he walked toward the Ford Cortina that had been following him since he'd got into London.

"What are you doing here Benton?" Harry said as he looked in through the passenger side window.

Harry took a long sip of his pint. "Do you know what I'm up to Benton?" Harry asked looking over at the military man.

The Brigadier had supposedly asked Benton to follow and "render any assistance necessary."

Benton shifted in his seat and looked around the half empty pub.

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. "Please Benton if anyone cared they couldn't eavesdrop."

"I know you're dealing with members of _that_ group, the same one that that woman was from that we shot yesterday." Benton relaxed slightly.

"I don't expect Ginny to die too easily Benton. Fanatics take a lot to kill." Harry held the man's gaze. "That's what I'm up to." Harry leant back into the booth and stared up at the tobacco stained ceiling. "I don't think you want to be apart of what I'm doing Benton."

"I've killed before Harry." He replied in a level tone.

Harry smiled at him. "Ah, but have you? You've fought battles and obeyed orders, you've killed as part of your duty." Harry paused once more. "I'm not doing this out of some idea of what you might think of as duty. In some ways, I'm like the" he paused and smirked. "Master."

"Harry I don't-" Harry cut him off.

"No, you don't. The Master is a person who has goals, people are in the way of his goals and he removes them. But then" Harry paused, and smirked again. "You could say the same thing about the Doctor."

"Harry I…" Benton trailed off.

"The Doctor topples governments, gets rid of the things in the cupboards, he's the man monsters fear." Harry paused thinking to himself.

"The Brigadier knows I'm an…associate of the Master. I actually consider him a friend as good as the Doctor."

Benton remained silent. "The Master, for all the time I have known him, throughout my life, he's travelled alone. The Doctor, however, he almost always is with someone. He's a teacher, an explorer, he marvels at the universe."

He took another sip of his pint.

"At the moment, my life, at this point, I'm not, not marvelling at the universe. Not when there are _fanatics_, terrorists, trying to rip down the web of time, causality and the threads of _my_ culture. At the moment, I'm more; working towards goals, I have people to find Benton, and then I deal with them." He fixed him with a stare. "Not in combat, not in a battle. I do things, and I deal with it. Sometimes I find some _satisfaction _in what I do, I'm starting to wonder what that makes me. I'm _satisfied_ in my work." Harry exhaled. "I'm starting to wish for home. Where sometimes I did things like this and sometimes I found _satisfaction_ in the work, but I had others around who understood the work that I, that we did." Harry chuckled a hollow laugh.

"Yet, at the moment the only person who _really _understands what I'm doing, is locked up in Fortress Island for 'unlisted crimes'. I'm sure he'll find the Doctor and Jo's visit a useful distraction." Harry said as he drained his pint.

"Benton, I don't think you want to see what I'm up to."

Benton reached forward and grabbed Harry's arm. "Harry. **I'm** your friend, at least I think we're friends, _I _want to help you, and would have without the Brigadier's orders."

Harry remained silent for a short time.

Benton blinked, a man had appeared behind the Land Rover with a struggling man. He had just _appeared_, there had been something like the reverse of an explosion of air, he wasn't even sure what it had been.

Then the man pulled off a mask, _just_ like the Master to reveal Harry Potter, even though he'd seen him pull on the mask it was still…somewhat unsettling, especially as he'd been the one to shoot the man whose face mask Harry had just removed.

Harry punched the man on the back of the head and threw him into the back of the Land Rover and climbed in.

"You know where to go Benton. Go. **Now**." Harry ordered as he rolled his shoulder around.

Even the shortest distance of a side-along apparition still made his muscles ache, he had been tempted just to shoot the man there and then, but he needed to get some information. It was unlikely that Ginny had made contact with anyone since her "incident", but he needed more information to be sure.

Ginny had seemed very confident, that was a worry, it meant she and her fellow terrorists had a plan, or at least something to go from just inciting people in little groups in little cafés that would one day likely become designer bars with over priced drinks and bouncers outside.

How he longed for the 21st century, to be in his own time once again, not a wanderer in the 1970s.

Benton stopped the Land Rover outside the abandoned factory, judging by the tyre marks Harry had been here before.

"Benton, stay here, whatever you hear, stay here."

"Harry I-" Harry gestured with his wand at the unconscious man in the back of the Land Rover and Benton watched as he floated out and came to a stop where Harry was standing.

"You _don't_ want to see what I need to do Benton, I don't want you to see, do you understand me." Harry said in a level tone staring at him.

"I…" Benton blinked several times. "Harry!" He said angrily and punched Harry in the arm.

Harry smiled. "Force of habit, just, don't okay. Stay here, I wouldn't want your idea to be tarnished of me any more. Trust me on this."

Benton sat on the front of the Land Rover, and didn't pretend to ignore the yells, the shouts coming from the factory.

No one else would be able to hear, it was only because he was so close, and _trying_ to listen that he could hear.

There was a large UNIT exclusion zone around this factory. That was likely why Potter had chosen this location for his…

His what? He knew what Potter was doing. He could have stayed well away from this.

The Brigadier had been vague with his _request_ and it was a request rather than an order, technically he was off duty.

Potter could have stopped him, prevented him from coming along.

Benton flinched as he heard a bullet shot, followed by another shout.

If he strained he could just make out Harry talking.

John Benton wasn't sure when he realised he could smell burning, then an indeterminate time after that Potter came walking away from the factory, a grim expression on his face.

He passed him and walked around to the back of the Land Rover.

"Are you…" Benton started.

"Yes, it seems Ginny _hasn't_ made an appearance yet." Harry said as he started to strip off his shirt and bent down to untie his boots, when Benton noted were splattered with blood and soot.

"That's good isn't it Harry?" He asked as he sat on the back of the Land Rover.

"Yes, and no. It means I need to see if we've got enough ingredients left to create spell or whatever to track Ginny down."

"She could be…" Benton trailed again as he saw the scars that littered Harry's body. Benton had spent plenty of time around his men and when he'd been in the British Army around plenty of others and many, many men carried scars of battles but Harry's body…

Harry was looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "Admiring me body Benton? I wouldn't have taken you for a…" Harry paused thinking for a moment. "A…'shirt lifter'?" He said a moment later in an amused tone.

"No! I mean…"

"I do believe I've made you blush Sergeant Benton." Harry chuckled.

"I've just never seen so many scars Harry." Benton replied after a moment.

Harry smiled as he removed his other boot and pulled off his pants. "Rather permanent evidence of my teenage years, plus even more reminders of the more recent times." He paused as he grabbed a small bag from the Land Rover and pulled out some fresh clothing. "Blade wounds, energy weapons, acid, gels, spell damage, you name it, I've probably got a scar from it."

"Battling an animated grotesque in a graveyard?" Benton asked curiously.

Harry paused as he was doing up his shirt. "Graveyard yes, you could say my opponent was _grotesque. _But no, I haven't had the exact experience you had in Devil's End. My graveyard experience was far more…visceral." Harry closed his eyes for the smallest moment, the memory of it, of Cedric's death, despite the time that had passed, the memories of that night were still…vivid. Even the Doctor and Martha's rescue, the sensation of being _rescued_, of being in the TARDIS, of…of everything. Harry found himself running his fingers over portions of his body, new scars having covered the healed wounds of that night.

As he was pulling on his boots Benton spoke again. "Do we need to...dispose of anything Harry?" He asked awkwardly.

Harry looked up at the Sergeant and shook his head. "No Sergeant."

"Should I ask?"

"Only if you want to know John. I'll tell you."

Benton remained quiet as Harry pulled on his boots and tied them up; Harry paid him more than a glance. Even for the controlled military man there seemed to be some internal struggle going on for him.

They were back, driving down the road, back towards London before Benton spoke in any lengthy way.

"We're going back to London?"

Harry nodded. "I have unfinished business with an individual."

"Unfinished business?" Benton asked curiously.

"Just before the Foula business I was prevented from accomplishing my business, it seemed they already knew I'd disappeared a member of their group. From my surveillance it's somewhere a few members of Ginny's group congregate." Harry paused as he put his foot down, and changed gear to pass several lorries.

Benton nodded, he had heard that Potter had arrived back at HQ injured and had to be fixed up by the Doctor.

It was, Benton thought _very_ disconcerting seeing Harry wearing a mask that made him look like the Master.

"My dear Sergeant Benton, you look almost concerned." Potter said _very much_ in the same tone of voice as the Master, it was _weird_.

"Don't do that Harry, it's bad enough that you've got _his_ face." Benton said shoving his hands into his jacket, it was turning into a cold night.

"They should all be there now." Harry gestured down a laneway.

"How're you going to handle this Harry, you were shot last time."

"Not just shot" Harry sniffed in amusement as he opened the rear of the Land Rover. "If you're going to stick around Benton you can be my backup." Harry said as he reached into the Land Rover and handed him a weapon in a holster.

Benton removed it and looked at Harry. "A silencer?"

"Wouldn't want to attract any additional attention."

"Harry you've got the face of a wanted man." Benton pointed out.

"Who should be locked up in prison, being visited by the Doctor at this very moment, unless the Doctor has broken him out of jail, or maybe Jo's walked in with her magic set of keys. Perhaps Trenchard's let him out."

Benton shrugged at Potter's comments, but then frowned. "How do you know Trenchard?"

_Bugger_. Harry thought to himself, he'd been a little too sarcastic for his own good.

"I eavesdrop Sergeant Benton and I wanted to know his name so I could go and visit my old friend."

Benton turned away from Harry for a moment, it was just too weird hearing Harry talk about _the_ _Master_, while wearing a mask that made him look like the Master.

Harry finished kitting himself out with the weapons from the rear of the Land Rover.

Benton looked at him as he checked the flash grenade. "You're going to let that off, in that building?" He asked incredulously.

"As you said Benton, I've already been shot once before, now it's time to take the less than subtle approach." Harry said and looked down at the single flash grenade and reached inside the Land Rover for a second one. "I've gotten too distracted with _being_ here, now it's about accomplishing the mission." Harry said, mostly to himself as he breathed a few breaths of the evening air.

"I could accompany you. Help." Benton offered carefully.

Harry just shook his head and walked off into the night air.

Benton didn't wait long there was the unmistakable sound of a flash grenade going off, then Harry appeared out of thin air again, again with a person, but this one was less alive thant the previous.

"Just…don't bother." Harry said dismissively as he disappeared once more. Just by looking at the _body_, Benton knew the man wasn't alive, the bullet wound in his head and chest also indicated the man had been expertly dispatched.

Harry appeared several moments later. Massaging his shoulder with a free hand, then he grabbed the body he and left a several moments ago and disappeared again.

He reappeared less than a minute later looking very much more tired and stressed.

"Go back to UNIT HQ Benton." He said as he rubbed his left shoulder, grimacing as he did so.

"Did you get…injured?"

Harry shook his head. "Apparition isn't all that fun when you're dragging someone along for the ride, Especially twice." He muttered the last bit to himself.

"What about you?"

"I'll return to where you left your car and pick it up and return to HQ." Harry said as he grabbed a small bag from the back of the Land Rover.

Harry closed his eyes, seemingly steeling himself.

"Okay Harry." Benton said clapping a hand down on his shoulder, startling Harry for a moment. "Tomorrow you're coming out for a drink with the boys." He said lightly.

Harry waited for a moment as Benton got into the vehicle and then disapparated away.

Harry looked up from his mug of tea as the Brigadier walked into his lab. He'd had a particularly uncomfortable night. Moving two bodies through apparition hadn't been the most comfortable experience, but, he _really_ hadn't wanted to drive with Benton with two bodies back to the factory to thoroughly dispose of them.

He needed to though, thoroughly dispose of them, he'd disapparated once more to dump most of the ashes into the sea, just in case. He doubted their remains could cause any issues to the timeline, less so than their living presence did.

"Mr Potter."

"Brigadier." Harry said looking up from the newspaper, there was no news coverage of his little 'outing' the previous night. But when you were dealing with wizards there wasn't likely to be. But there was a story of a town Outer Hebrides having seen a "green cloud that looked a bit like a snake" whilst several buildings in the town "mysteriously caught fire".

"I just received a note from the Doctor and Ms Grant, they are assisting the Royal Navy with some business with an old fort close to Fortress Island."

Harry looked up from the paper as the Brigadier sat down opposite him with his own mug of tea. "And Brigadier?"

"Fortress Island is the location that was chosen to house the Master."

Harry feigned some interest in this revelation. "Interesting, but I did know that already Brigadier, Jo and the Doctor were talking about it a bit." He wasn't actually sure if they had or not, but given how much the Doctor and Jo talked it was _likely_ that they'd mentioned it at a point when he could have listened in. Not that it mattered, it wasn't as though they'd be able to ask Trenchard if he'd seen him.

The Brigadier made a non-committal noise before taking a sip of his tea.

There was an extended amount of silence between them; Harry was the one to break it. "Was there something else Brigadier?"

This seemed to disrupt the Brigadier's train of thought somewhat. "Just to offer UNIT's resources to you Mr Potter, if and when you need them."

Harry looked up at him, but said nothing.

The Brigadier continued to look at him. "You've assisted us more than you think Mr Potter. Mr Benton can, barring UNIT operations continue to assist you."

"During his 'time off' you mean Brigadier?" Harry asked removing his wand and waving it at the door, it shut somewhat loudly. "I appreciate the offer Brigadier, but I had consigned to working on this alone."

"It pays Mr Potter to have someone to cover your back."

"Yes, it does. But…" Harry shook his head. "Benton is a fine soldier, but I'm not. Even back home I wasn't a soldier, I fought in battles, I stared into the faces of evil, I watched death walk through my life and saw the beginnings of the next great adventure." He paused to smile. "Back home, in my present, the 'future', I did many things, a jack of all trades, researcher, fighter, defender, I learnt these things from my friends, some are still there, some are here. I had the skills I've used here, but with a different direction." Harry looked hard at the Brigadier. "I'm not a soldier, I'm on a mission to remove certain people from this era, in some circles I think they'd call me an assassin. I don't want that label on any of your men Brigadier, you're too good for something like that." Harry said finally.

The Brigadier was silent for some time, regarding the younger man.

"Mr Potter, you may not be trained as a soldier, but you are also not an assassin. These people present a tangible threat to this country and the 'web of time'" He said awkwardly. "You are protecting everyone now and into the future from these _terrorists_, from their actions. You are not merely removing them for a fee, you yourself, Mr Potter have said you are on a mission, you have, I am confident, goals clearly and meticulously set out as you did our _Operation_."

Harry was actually feeling a little better about everything after the Brigadier's little speech.

"Very rousing Brigadier. I gave more than one speech like that back in the day."

"I hope you took away from it more than my oration Mr Potter."

Harry nodded. "But, it is still dangerous what I do and where I go, I can't have Sergeant Benton tailing me."

The Brigadier drained his tea. "I understand that Mr Potter, but I also do not wish you to come to harm, you are going into dangerous places. Just know that you have assistance if it is required."

Harry nodded. "Very well Brigadier, I can understand your point of view. I will keep it in mind should I need any help."

"Be sure you do Mr Potter, it costs nothing to ask for help when it is needed." As he turned to leave Harry gestured with his wand and a muttered spell to unlock the door.

-/

Harry stared through the binoculars as the hovercraft 'escaped', he'd considered hiding himself inside the hovercraft to congratulate Magister for his exemplary escape from Trenchard, the Royal Navy and the Doctor.

But that seemed a little _too_ smug and all knowing, even for him, someone who knows of their future.

Though _why_ Magister would come back for that business with Atlantis and whatever he wasn't really sure. The power of Kronos probably.

"Can't stand around all day sightseeing." Harry muttered to himself and disapparated with a cringe.

He was beginning to dislike the amount of apparition that was required, either apparating or disapparating with a _body_ gave him aching muscles. It wasn't like exercise, where he could build up his side-along apparition muscles. They just ached and he needed a large tub or heat rub around his shoulders at the end of the night.

Maybe you built up your side-along skills when the bodies were alive and not struggling. When they'd expired they were a dead weight, maybe that was it.

It wasn't as though there was any literature on this sort of thing, who would it be written for?

Maybe he'd write an essay '_Solving temporal incursions by terrorists from the subjective future; methods and mechanisms for removing and disposing of issues and subjects_ by Harry Potter'.

Harry snorted to himself. He somehow doubted that would go down well in Flourish & Blotts.

-/

Harry cringed as he flushed the toilet again, the remains of the man who wouldn't stop calling him a "deviant, muggle rooting, dementor buggeror", who hadn't met or seen Ms Weasley, his 'Savoir', who should have killed Harry when she'd had the chance.

It was good that he'd succumbed to the minimal amount of torture in such a short time. Though the anti-apparition/disaparition spell that was around the building, which he hadn't really noticed when he'd arrived had forced a change of plans.

It was fortunate that even mad time altering bastards like the former wizard now swirling around London's sewer system, probably past bits of old Cyberman, had to take a slash every so often.

Though, as he walked out the bar was disconcertingly empty, with more than a few blood stains.

Outside was worse, not just the bodies; but the lone wizard in long dark robes with his wand aimed high pointing to the sky. "_Morsmordre_!"

"Shit." Harry muttered as he whipped out his wand. "_Avada Kedavra_." The Death Eater managed to cry out in shock as the deep green spell washed over him and he collapsed to the ground.

Harry turned and walked away into the night. He didn't care if he'd killed off an 'important' Death Eater, not after he'd seen how the bodies had been abused.

Benton found Harry in their local.

"Benton. Hello."

"You're in early Harry." Benton said taking a seat next to him at the end of the bar.

Harry shrugged. "I needed a drink."

After Benton had ordered and received his own pint he remained silent for a time.

"I forgot that a lot of the war was about terror. The war that's building with _them_." Harry reflected. "The dark mark's about fear and terror, but it's backed up by something, something real and tangible." Harry mused to himself. "It's not just death, it's…the tangible reality that people get faced with when creating scenes of fear and terror."

"Harry did you…" Benton trailed off.

"Yes, I've been continuing with my assignment, I just happened to walk into someone else's war in the process of it. It's my war too, sort of." Harry chuckled sarcastically, if such a thing were possible. "Well I end it at least."

They were silent for a short time as the barman brought Harry another pint.

Benton reckoned it was not Harry's second, or even his third.

"Did you hear?" Benton asked before dropping his voice. "The Master escaped."

Harry smirked lightly. "Yes, I did know about it. I'm sure the Brigadier will be giving the UN and good bollocksing for placing the Master in such prison with an ineffectual warden." Harry commented as he sipped, rather than as he'd done so with his previous pints, which he _drank_.

Benton remained silent for a minute or two. "Did you know?"

"Know what?" Harry turned to look at him, placing his half empty pint on the bar.

"What would happen?" Benton added.

Harry snorted. "That Trenchard was going to be a fool and get himself killed and that the Doctor would try _again _to make peace between the Homo reptillia and humans? Look how well that turned out the down at Wenley Moor." Harry replied in a dark tone, shocking Benton slightly with has sarcastic comments.

Harry stood up, leaving the remains of his pint, then leaned down to Benton's side. "If you would like, some backup would be appreciated this Friday, my next target is somewhere in Greenwich."

-/

Harry looked around. It was _grim_.

This area had well and truly changed by the 21st century. The Millennium Dome and other things covered this area in his time.

According to his original scan from the Post Office Tower there was a high trace of the same wizard based time travel residue around here.

Maybe it was just the gas works and the power station, but it all seemed a little too grim for his liking.

Benton had agreed to come along, while he probably could have done this without any assistance, he'd never actually been here before.

Still hopefully these last few people could be dealt with together and easily. He resisted the urge to cast _another_ detection spell, he'd practically been washing the area in spells since he'd found the general vicinity that corresponded to his map.

It was little wonder much of this area got re-developed over the next 30 years. Maybe this was why some wizards had chosen it as a place to hold raves, or whatever they did out here, maybe they had swingers parties thought cynically to himself. A shag in the afternoon following by subverting history in the evening.

"Why can't I get a leg over?" Harry muttered to himself, not caring that he was talking to himself, if anyone was around they would have shot at or talked to him by now.

But that was the point, he'd been spending all of his time with UNIT, not exactly prime leg-overing opportunities there, or being shot at and that also wasn't the best time to ask anyone if they wanted a quick shag behind the land rover. _Not_ that there were many 'birds' around.

Harry shook his head, maybe he could just call in a bomb threat and clear out all the sane people, only mad terrorist wizards would stay around here.

Just as he was pondering how to find his targets he was shot, in the back, with a rather powerful stunner from some distance away.

"…that's Harry Potter…what's he bloody doing _here_ and _now_."

"…heard that he's been at some of the other places…"

"…-uck…Harry frigging Potter…you know he and Ginny were together…"

"_I _was there if you recall."

"What should we do with them?"

"_That_ one's a muggle."

"Are you _sure_ that one's Potter."

"The scar, the hair, the frigging fact that only _he_ would follow us here, you know he's one of the loonies that believes the shit we spin for the muggles."

Harry tried to identify the voices, coming out of a stunner without suddenly sitting up and looking around was a learnt skill, just as pretending to _still_ be knocked out through either blacking out or concussion was and equal skill. Luckily it was just a stunner so it lacked many of the nastier side affects that other forms of being knocked out had.

"Keep an eye on them Graham and I are going to try for Ginny again."

Harry allowed himself to sit up as he heard the two pairs of feet leave the general vicinity.

"You're awake." Harry blinked as he opened his eyes. He didn't bother to struggled _yet_, he already knew he'd been bound to a chair, with _normal_ ropes rather than magical bindings.

Benton was slumped forward in an chair opposite him.

"Evidently. So, I'm Harry Potter, boy who lived-" Harry was cut off by the man opposite him.

"How'd you make it here?" He asked as he picked up Harry's wand, inspecting it.

"Magic, skill, muggle knowledge, the usual." Harry commented making a show of struggling at the ropes.

"You won't get out of those, tied them myself."

"And here was I thinking they were magical bindings." Harry commented as he tried his best to sound disappointed.

He looked over across the room as the man turned towards a table with what appeared to be his and Benton's weapons on it, _and_ his mask that he'd been wearing to disguise himself. Looking back he saw Benton was looking moderately awake.

Harry mouthed 'quiet' at him. Benton nodded quickly.

"This some sort of magical mask? Something your friends the Weasleys came up with?" Harry wondered if he should know this guy, he looked a few years older than him, but he couldn't put a name to the face. The face was one of the people identified before he'd left but in his post stunner awakening couldn't put name to face.

"Nup." Harry shook his head. "Just good ole-xenotech." The man stared at him. "Technology from beyond our Earthly reaches." The man glared at him. "It's alien technology you lame maniacal idiot." Harry said finally.

"The belief in aliens is a deviant and misinformed method of dealing with the complexities of modern wizarding life, it is a delusion that wizards and muggles like to think exist. It is a deviancy that you indulge in to further your experiences and relations with the muggle military and social elite."

Harry leaned back into the chair as much as he could as the man approached, he could just about see Benton staring at him or the man slightly surprised at the sudden rant.

"That's…a very interesting point of view." He resisted the urge to ask how many times he'd needed to read it to get it down pat. Maybe they had readings of it, or maybe Ginny just gave out little red books.

"It's the only point of view any sane, intelligent wizard should have, _that_'s why we're here."

The man turned away from him and back to the table, picking up a pistol and weighing it in his hand.

"This is one of those _muggle_ weapons?" He asked pointing it at himself and looking down the barrel, Harry could see Benton tensing.

Harry pondered to himself how to answer a question like that, _how_ to answer a question like that and turn it to his and Benton's advantage. It was very possible that he could just say 'squeeze the trigger and find out' but he very much doubted the safety was off or the man was _that_ gullible.

_However_, if he'd read Ginny's book of self determination and quotations from Ms Weasley and probably re-read it he could be somewhat susceptible to…

"Yes, yes it is. You like the how it feels don't you?" Harry said, as he tried and succeeded in catching the man's eye. He made a mental note to send the Master a good bottle of Cognac, care of Professor Thascalos. Of all the skills he'd learnt from the Master this was the most useful and now not as headache inducing as it once was.

"Yess…I like it."

"You know who I am." Harry said still gazing unblinking in a steady tone at the man.

"You're-" Harry didn't let him finish.

"I'm _your_ Master, and you will obey-" Harry wasn't able to finish _his_ sentence.

"I will obey. You understand the flows of society, you have seen into the eyes of the deviant."

_Uh oh…_ Harry thought to himself. He briefly wondered if Ginny gave all her speeches like that.

"Uh…yes. Now flick the switch on the muggle weapon…you will obey _me_." Harry was rewarded with several more "I will obey, I will obey." And also a satisfying click.

Now was the more nasty part.

"Now, gaze into that hole, you will obey me, obey me and squeeze the trigger."

Benton's eyes went wide and then there was a BANG, with some of the blood hitting Benton.

"I thought the Doctor said hypnosis was about suggestion." Benton said as Harry pushed himself forward so he could put his feet on the ground to shuffle towards Benton.

"It's a good thing then, that I learnt that from the Master." Harry said as he kicked his foot towards Benton's bound hands.

"What was that for?" He exclaimed and looked at Harry.

"Grab my boot, I've got a knife in there."

"Why don't you just 'pop' away?" Benton said as Harry kicked awkwardly again.

"If I could I would have." He replied. "Quick as you can Benton, I don't want them to come back and find we've done away with our captor."

"And then?"

"Then what?"

"After we escape." Benton added.

"You've really not hung around with the Doctor very often have you?" Harry wondered aloud. "First we get captured, then we investigate their base and then we stop the enemy, preferably without destroying a planet in the process, but their base of operations is okay."

"What-" Benton swore as he obviously nicked his arm with the knife. "The knife's sharp."

"All the better to...and all that."

"All the better to what?" Benton asked.

"Well stab and kill people _obviously_ Benton, why else would I have a sharp knife with me?"

"To get out of knots?" Benton asked with a grin as he freed his hands.

"There is that." Harry admitted as he twisted around.

"So have we 'you know' been here?" Benton asked as he cut through the ropes, having been unable to undo them, much despite Harry's jibing.

"You know?" Harry repeated curiously.

"Poof, pop" Benton replied awkwardly "…you know."

Harry pulled his hands free as the ropes fell away.

"No" He turned to look at Benton who was making and explosion motion with his hands. "Apparated?" Harry asked as he walked over to the table and began to replace the things from his pockets. "No. You usually get the sensation of pulled muscles when you do that roughly, and with us unconscious it's _really_ rough. Here." He passed Benton his weapons, he'd come interestingly well armed.

"So we're still in London." Benton surmised as he tucked away the weapons.

"Unless they had a portkey." Harry said mostly to himself. "But that would require a bit of clout and nouse, something as evidenced by our friend there" Harry nodded down at the body on the ground. "I doubt these people have in spades."

"So what now?" Benton asked.

"Really?" Harry shook his head at Benton. "Really?" Harry repeated. He spared one final look at the body before opening the door, his wand out.

"To kill?" Benton muttered a query.

"Wound, these people actually know enough to go ask questions. I want to ask them some."

"But if you-" Benton started but Harry cut him off.

"Shut up Benton."

"Yes sir." Benton replied, Harry couldn't tell from his tone if he was mocking or not, and didn't turn around to check.

They'd been walking along the corridor for several meters before Benton spoke again.

"If we still are where we were," He paused and then added as an almost afterthought "Sir. Where are we?"

"Tunnels, sewers, crypts, old foundations, Dalek pits, Cyber-Tombs, take your pick Sergeant, greater London's littered with interesting places to hide nuclear facilities, dinosaurs and secret government bases." Harry replied again mostly to himself. "Shhh…" Harry said as he looked down the corridor, concentrating.

"What?"

"There was a…" Then Harry heard the second sound of displaced or possibly disillusioned air, and then a moment later spells started flying.

Harry dove forward and tucked himself into a forward roll, barreling into the disillusioned person.

He was relatively sure as he head-butted (and immediately regretted that course of action) that a spell had hit Benton. Harry barely had time to note to himself that head-butting someone _wasn't_ the best way to incapacitate an individual when he was grabbed in a headlock dragging him away from the unconscious man.

"Drop the wand Potter." The man said through clenched teeth and a death grip around his neck.

Harry grunted a shattering spell at the ground at his feet and was dimly aware of something squelchy hitting his leg, by the sound of it, it was the man's foot, going all squelchy.

Then the man fell backwards into what sounded like a gunshot.

Harry turned around slowly to find the man clutching his (bleeding) shoulder with Benton leaning forward in the gloom of the corridor holding a gun behind him with a determined look on his face.

"Please don't say you were aiming for his head." Harry commented as he grabbed the man's wand.

-/

"You've got Veritaserum!" Harry exclaimed to the two men whom he'd cuffed and tied up. "Why?"

They both remained quiet and bloodstained.

Benton was waiting outside. At least he wouldn't need to ignore any exasperated methods of intelligence extraction, it should just be a nice, simple conversation.

"Or maybe that wasn't Veritaserum." Harry muttered to himself looking over the head-butted man who was now foaming around the mouth and seemingly choking on a mouth full of viscous foam. He stared at the label again and realised there was a tiny easy to miss set of skull and crossbones.

"You're going to kill me, aren't you Potter?" The man with the wounded shoulder said as the room quietened once more.

Harry hadn't asked his name, he didn't want to know the man's name.

Harry didn't want to admit to himself it had been hard to just _watch_ the man die of whatever it was poisoning, he almost wanted to _save_ him, just to kill him more humanely.

He wasn't sure what that meant, at the moment, talking to this man, he didn't want or need to think about it.

"The boy who lived, a killer." The man spat at him.

"I'm sure we could both sit down and have a nice cup of tea and talk about this reasonably." Harry snorted and leant against the wall. "Except we're not. You and the others followed Ginny into _our_ past. To manipulate and alter _our_ future. Did you think the Ministry would sit back and _let_ you do that?"

"They didn't have any choice! You've seen the world Potter, wizards starting the believe our own creations, the world has become mixed up and you and your muggle friends are in the thick of it destabilising our society. We barely got through the last wars and now you and the muggles are continuing this insidious fiction. We had to do something about it." Harry almost rolled his eyes at the man's struggles as he lectured at him from where he was restrained.

"You could have tried in our own time, or when you found yourself here you could have gone native gone away from the war." Harry reasoned.

"There is no try it's do or be done with Potter. You should know that." The man stared hard at him.

"Are you paraphrasing _Star Wars_?" Harry asked with a frown. "It's not just weird coming from you it's also anachronistic, though you're all about being anachronistic aren't you." Harry continued to himself. "Our world is about to tear itself apart and you and Ginny and the rest of them are setting up little groups, communes of thought. To try and what? Reshape our society along your ideals, all the while that Voldemort is out there?"

"You dealt with him, we weren't going to change that." Was his response; a conversational shrug.

"And if I hadn't, if your actions here caused someone at Hogwarts to report things differently, if someone changed their mind about the Light and decided that eradicating all the muggles was a better idea than allowing people to believe what is right in front of their ideas?"

"Then we would have stopped it, we're not _violent_, not like you Potter, you're a deviant, you're believing in something _false_, can't you see it's just an extension of the wizarding world, even muggle-borns can see that _aliens_ don't exist, yet you do…I pity you and the world you've created."

Harry stared, somewhat wide-eyed at the man. "You don't get it do you? I don't care what you think about me or how I think about aliens. I care about the Web of Time, about how your buggering of the timelines would affect our present; the future." Harry exhaled, trying to calm himself. "Question time."

The man stared at him silent.

"Do you know where Ginny Weasley is? Yes or no."

"If you're going to kill me, do it and get it over with, I'm not answering questions from a deranged amoral deviant."

Benton flinched at the sound of a man's shout of agony, he however did not charge into the room, only shifted his weight and cringed at the bruising that was already manifesting itself along his arm where he'd been 'paralysed', according to Potter it should go away "at some point".

He however couldn't, later ignore the smell of burning that accompanied Potter as he roughly shut the metal door as he joined him in the corridor.

"I really hate mixing philosophy with target based conversations." Potter muttered as he walked past.

Harry breathed deep of the night air as he looked up at the sky. Now there was just Ginny to find, then all he had to do was wait around for Omega to try and escape his black hole and then everything would fall into plan.

"They wrecked the Land Rover, I've got onto HQ they're sending one round." Benton said.

"Good."

"How many of 'em want to invade us?" Benton asked after some moments of silence.

"I don't know Sergeant, the Doctor would probably have a better idea than me. I'm just here to make sure things go as they did" Harry paused. "And to flatten out the bumps that made their way back onto the road."

"Well at least it's all quiet for now. Even if the Master is still out there." Benton said, the last part directed vaguely in Harry's direction.

"Still fishing for information, even after everything tonight Sergeant?" Harry said looking away from the sky back down to…Earth. "You really think the Master is going to…" Harry stopped himself talking as he had a flash of memory, of the Doctor talking about Kronos…or something. No, he mentally corrected himself, it had been Jo, and the amazing way that Queen Galleia of Atlantis had her hair.

Harry chuckled drawing Benton's attention. Of course Jo would mention something like that, and that his young self would remember that.

It felt like such an age ago that he'd got a ride in the Doctor's car for the first time, seen his house, gone shopping with Jo who had been as awed by all the shops, the sights of London as he'd been. It'd also been the time when the Doctor had freed him from requiring glasses, and when he'd told him long stories of his time on Gallifrey when he'd been "younger and like a child" and the hermit he used to know. All about daisies that weren't daisies, the flutterwings that used to spawn in the spring and the forests of Cadonwood trees that the Doctor loved to explore and get lost in.

"How did I go from that, to this?" Harry muttered mostly to himself, with all things including blood on his hands, literally and metaphorically. But he knew the answer, life, death and the stuff in between, life wasn't all stories of wonder and brilliance. You had to fight and defend for it, sometimes there's danger, sometimes there's injustice, sometimes you have to do bad things for what needs to be done.

Benton cleared his throat. "Sir? Back up's arrive."

"Yes, right Benton, somewhere the tea's getting cold." Harry said to himself.

-/

_A/N:_

_Thanks to everyone for holding on!_

_Also sorry this chapter is very much delayed, I began it with the best intentions, but life and some crisises got in the way and completing this chapter went on the back burner for a while. (It remained in my recent documents though for most of the time)._

_I'll try to keep the chapters coming on a (more) regular basis. (I know I always say that)._

_The paragraph where Harry is watching the Magister escape in a hovercraft is the final few minutes of __The Sea Devils__. I had planned it differently, planned it several ways differently. _

_One of them would have played out as Harry thinks about it, another would have had Harry rescue the Master and take him on board the hovercraft and it would have been Harry who waves to the Doctor from the hovercraft, while the Master would have been on the floor of the hovercraft. _

_This idea played nicely in my imagination and when I wrote the idea out, but it didn't feel right, it was basically the Harry rescuing the Master. The Master's never really rescued Harry yet, not in the same way the Doctor does and it just seemed wrong to reverse something that hadn't really happened and have Harry rescue the Master, it didn't seem right for their friendship. _

_So while I tried other variations I decided to go with what's in the story at the moment. _

_Just in case anyone trying to get a death count on the people Harry's trying to "disappear", there was a largish group that were with Ginny when she was flying over Cardiff back in 2003. _

_But when she arrived in the 1970s there's about 10. Harry learns this in Chapter 23 from one man, there's another person disposed of in chapter 24, another in chapter 25 and a few more in this chapter. _

_Kronos and Atlantis refer to __The Time Monster__. _


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27**

"Ah Professor Thascalos, there's a man waiting for you in your office."

"Dr Percival? A man, who?" Professor Thascalos eyed the director of the institute, who had been one of the first he'd brought under his will upon arriving here.

"I…I…I…didn't ask, he said he was came to thank you. I…I left him in your office."

"Idiot!" Professor Thascalos shook his head, dealing with these _humans_, how the Doctor could bother with them, if he didn't need their equipment…and their measly intellect, while small was useful for the most tedious of experiments, after that they could be disposed of. Restraining himself from snapping the man before him's neck he composed himself and dismissed Percival to whatever other duties the man filled his boring little life with.

Removing his weapon from a pocket he carefully opened the door, which he noted _had_ been locked when he departed. Not that he would leave anything that these small minded humans would find even the least amount interesting.

As he walked in he came face to face with another man, holding a weapon pointing at him. Though this weapon was unlike any weapon any humans here were likely to wield. Though the man seemed more weary than when he had last seen him.

"Hello Magister."

"Now," Magister paused leaning into back into his chair and regarding him. "Your quest is almost over?"

Harry closed his eyes as he held the brandy glass in his hands to warm. "Yes, finally. Just one more." He replied with some relief.

"Ms Weasley. You have dealt with her other devoted followers then? As you discussed with me? The last time you 'dropped in'." Magister asked in a calming tone.

Harry fancied there should have been a warm fire in the grate beside them, but it wasn't really the right season for it.

Harry nodded. His hands were steeped literally and metaphorically in blood, and yet, he didn't _feel_ anything, nothing that concerned him. Maybe even a sense of contentedness, of satisfaction that there was just one more person to deal with.

"Yes. I've dealt with them all. They've got no meaningful existence here to the timeline. Not even…" Harry shook his head to himself.

"Not even?" Magister prompted.

"Not even a half decent resurrection potion could do it."

"Your experiences with such things of course." Magister said as he swirled the brandy in his glass.

"Of course." Harry repeated. "This might be the last time I get a chance to drop in on you." Harry said meeting Magister's gaze with a smile.

"Oh? The Doctor regains his time travel abilities," It was more of a statement than a question. "the Time Lords finally get sick of him meddling in the affairs of this paltry little planet?"

"Something like that." Harry decided not to point out that it was pot calling the kettle a meddler. "But I just wanted to say how much I've enjoyed surprising you." Magister raised an eyebrow. "And reaffirming our acquaintance."

"Likewise Mr Potter, there are so few individuals in the universe worthy of the time to form a friendship such as ours."

Harry finished his brandy; placing it on the side table beside him.

"Good luck with whatever it is you're up to." Harry said rising from his seat.

"You don't know Harry?" Magister asked amused.

"That would be telling." Harry stated cryptically.

"Should I ask you Mr Potter?" Magister asked as he walked over to his desk where a newspaper was waiting on the desk, Harry was sure it hadn't been there when he'd first come into the room; _The Tally Ho_.

"Who is No 6?" Harry mumbled to himself.

"The more important question would be Mr Potter, who is number 1." Magister said equally cryptically.

Harry drew his gaze away from the paper. "If you're ever in the early 21st century, come and visit me." Harry said as he offered his hand to Magister, who took it, grasping and shaking it warmly. Harry held his gaze. "You, I mean Magister…not…"

"Not?" He challenged.

"Not your future incarnations." Said Harry in a deep tone meeting and matching Magister's gaze.

Magister raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, considering the intonation of Harry's voice.

"Be seeing you Mr Potter." Magister said as Harry opened the door, Harry nodded to him as he departed.

-/

He felt, almost invigorated, enlivened even, as he worked, preparing things for a potion, for the spells, the encounters that would follow. His task, his quest was reaching a conclusion.

"Just what sort though hmmm?" He asked himself as he leant back onto the bench stool.

"_An adequate potion Mr Potter, adequate for someone of such a low attention span." _

"_You're approaching the final end now Harry, and what will my beloved sister do when she finds you've 'dispatched' all her wonderful followers?"_

"_A very creative potion my dear boy, especially considering where you are. The muggles can be such a delight, so fascinating."_

"_I always thought my transformations were painful, but what of the pain you have suffered through and caused to others Harry?"_

"_Wotcher Harry, now you're coming up to face the former-love of your life, they're always the harshest critics! Wish I could help!"_

Then Harry swore as the stool slid away from him and he fell onto the hard laboratory floor.

"No more huffing potion fumes for me." He muttered to himself.

UNIT HQ was somewhat more empty than usual. Captain Yates had taken off with the Doctor's TARDIS several hours ago, which meant that he wasn't going to walk into the Doctor or Jo as he walked through HQ, _and_ it meant that the Doctor, Jo, the Brigadier, Benton and Magister were all either at the Newton Institute or the Doctor, Jo and Magister were up to their necks in trouble. Or Chronovores or people with _groovy_ hairstyles, or time flow analogues. Or something, maybe even V2 bombers.

He had a rather different thing to address.

"The last remains of Ginny Weasley, or not." Harry exhaled into the antiseptic-scented environment of UNIT's morgue. Various doors with various biohazard symbols that he was sure people in Geneva dreamt up to describe the variety of aliens and other things that these draws and coo lrooms contained. But he was here for a smaller drawer, for a smaller box containing what they'd picked up and scraped up following Ginny's ill-chosen disapparition.

The bone was simple enough to remove and grind up for distribution throughout the potion.

He only had enough ingredients to prepare the potion once, so he'd made sure he had several batches of the final product. So he could use the potion several times, if he messed up the implementation.

The war; Voldemort's war, the First Wizarding War, the Dark Rebellion or whatever it was they were calling it here and now…likely none of those _yet_, but is was spinning up to full speed, and going out to places like Diagon Alley, while probably still safe wasn't worth the chance.

"Yet I can run around killing whomever I like, but I don't want to take a chance running out for some potions ingredients." Harry said aloud, snorting to himself, and then frowned. "I must stop talking to myself." He said shaking his head.

The congealed blood and dried blood likewise was simple enough to reconstitute and to add for the final portion of the potion. Then he could apply it to the maps he had laid out.

They weren't magical maps, the one he'd used previously had been ruined beyond use so he'd got the UNIT stores to bring up several maps of the United Kingdom, he also had more detailed maps of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, he'd also requested maps of the European Union...except that didn't exist yet. They'd offered him maps of Europe and its surrounding countries.

Even though he'd been here for however many months the differences were still jarring.

A journey into time wasn't as fun as you'd think, not when you were stuck in one time and place, unable to go home, with a war looming over the top of you. One that you were integral to ending, well not you specifically but your temporally removed self who'd yet to be born.

But he had managed to come to this time and _not_ be tempted to go to Hogwarts and see his parents.

Harry shook his head as he stirred anti-clockwise once more, that wasn't true, despite everything he'd said back in the 21st century when he'd left, there was a tiny part of him that did think about going to Hogwarts to see his parents. Probably the same part of him that looked into the Mirror of Erised, except even that part of him had changed and matured. He knew it was something he couldn't, shouldn't and wouldn't do. They hadn't even met one another yet most likely and his mother and Severus Snape were likely still friends, or maybe Sirius and his father were already bullying Snape which would...

"Ghosts of the past...and future." Harry muttered to himself to clear his head, he'd decided that talking to himself really wasn't _all_ bad. It was better than getting into narrative conversations in his head about the future, past and present, whichever one he was in at the moment.

The potion gurgled and then 5 puffs of smoke shot out of the beaker spreading across the ceiling; further staining it. The UNIT cleaners would likely have a time cleaning all of that off whenever he departed this time and place.

The puffs of smoke indicated the final portion of the potion and he removed stirring stick he'd been using and checked the instructions once more and then pulled out his wand, holding it just below the skin that was settling on the top of the potion and began to intone the final parts of the potion's mantra.

Given that he'd used a variation of the location potion he'd made the first time, this one needed a longer settling time, so, after locking the potion away everything he went out to the pub to await the inevitable return of UNIT's finest from their most recent encounter with 'the Master', their last for the foreseeable future as far as he knew.

-/

"Brigadier." Harry greeted the military man as he joined him in the corridor.

"Mr Potter. Benton informs me your very close to pin pointing the location of Ms Weasley, _if_ she's still alive." Said the Brigadier.

Harry nodded, he'd talked to Benton the previous night, who had looked like he'd needed a drink, de-aging probably did that to you.

"Yes...if she's still alive. I have my doubts that she'd dead Brigadier if I'm honest." Harry said pushing open the double doors that lead towards the corridor his lab was in.

"Hmm. How so?"

Harry shrugged. "Just that...she's a fighter. Mad, psychotic and down right deranged. But..."

"Those are the worst Mr Potter, those that are _convinced_ of their missions that they're going to benefit the world from carrying their plans out." The Brigadier paused. "Straight forward invasions are much simpler." He finished.

"Except the part where the public find out about alien pressences and invasions?"

"And how many lay people know in your time Mr Potter?" The Brigadier challenged with a slight smirk.

Harry chuckled and shook his head. "A point to you Brigadier."

"So this gloop is going to pin point where Ms Weasley is located correct?" The Brigadier eyes a small beaker that was full of a deep red thin liquid.

"That's right Brigadier, if I've got the potion right." Harry said, making sure the wooden frame and boarders he'd nailed together to place the may on so the potion didn't drip over the floor were in place. The potion had turned out to have a thinner consistency than he'd thought it was going to have. He was vaguely sure it was due to the consistency of the blood he'd used, he might now have got the reconstitution absolutely perfect. So while his alive, yet dead potions master may have taken issue with it, according to the book he was using 'some imperfections, deficiencies and inadequacies can be absorbed by this potion'. Which managed to be critical of him, despite being written in a however many years old book, which was something of a feat considering it was likely written to be helpful, though he imagined only grudgingly.

"Do I need any special protection, gas mask, blast shield?" Harry didn't dignify the latter with a response.

"No Brigadier, you just stand there. There shouldn't be any noxious fumes, this is a different potion to the other one."

"Potions, magic..." Harry smiled at the Brigadier shaking his head.

"Was your life so simple before I came along Brigadier? Aliens, a mysterious man with a police box and another man with a propensity to hypnotise people who got in the way?" Harry asked casually as he tucked his wand into an outer pocket.

This potion while not looking remotely like his previous one did function similarly, with his wand being placed on the liquid 'some cleaning of the wand will be required following the use of this potion and spell' said the book helpfully.

"Are you going to get on with it Mr Potter." Was the Brigadier's only response to his comment.

"Yes Sir, Brigadier, Sir." Was his sarcasm laden reply. Harry glanced over at the book that was on a neighbouring table, just to check the incantations a however many-th time, it wasn't his third, fourth or fifth read through them, he couldn't really remember how many times he'd read through the instructions. Some days it reading it, it did remind him of his departed potions professor, and a part of him felt saddened that he was departed, along with the many, many other people.

Harry drew himself back into the present, sometimes in the times he was working alone he found himself dipping into wistful melancholy.

Lethbridge Stewart stood back as Mr Potter drew himself up, taking a breath and began to mutter either to himself or to the disturbing red 'potion' in a large beaker he was holding with a pair of large pair of wooden tongs. He blinked and stared as the 'potion' began to bubble as Mr Potter's mutterings became louder, it seemed to be elements of a foreign language, with bits of Latin and Welsh mixed in with it. Or maybe it was just gibberish.

Then Potter poured the liquid out onto the map he'd prepared, _not_ a map that showed any magical sites, merely one he had obtained from UNIT's stores.

"Now...if I've done this right, this should reveal where Ginevra is residing." Harry said to himself as he placed his wand gently onto the potion, it hissed slightly as it took the weight of his wand and he watched as his wand sailed along the map before stopping, poiting at a location. Then the potion shifted moving away from where it was pointing and then solidified into a jelly-wax like structure.

"Map makes must make a lot of money, whenever you do these spells it wrecks your map." Harry muttered to himself looking over to the map, and grabbed a hold of a lamp on an extendable arm and turned it on; illuminating the map better than the overhead lighting.

"Hmmm." Harry said to himself, it didn't look like a wizarding location, at least not one that he was aware of. "What'd you think Brigadier?" Harry watched the Brigadier as he leaned over and tensioned slightly.

Lethbridge Stewart stepped over to look where Potter's 'wand' was pointing on the map he'd covered in the sludge of his, and he recognised the location. It was on several briefings, meetings and other such things from the intelligence agencies in London and from UNIT abroad, as well as some other intelligence agencies whom he kept in contact with for 'just in case' purposes.

"You know something." Potter said looking at him.

"Yes Mr Potter. I do." He looked around the room, wondering if _they_ might be listening.

"Please Brigadier, I sweep this room daily, I got rid of _your_ bugs a while ago." Potter said casually as he plucked his wand from the sludge with another pair of tongs and took it over to the sink to wash and scrub off. Then he added. "Or any of the other bugs that weren't _yours_."

Harry turned on the taps to hot water and waited for the water to come from which ever hot water boiler, wherever it was in the UNIT building. Just by the way the Brigadier had looked at the map he knew that the military man knew something, something interesting no doubt.

Harry felt he should be elated, now that he knew where Ginny is, that maybe he should be apparating in, rushing in to find and eliminate her. But brash moves like that tended to get oneself killed, even sneaking in likely wasn't the option, if Ginny was there she'd likely have some other sycophants around her, and if the Brigadier was worried then it had to be some other terrestrial form of problem, which also didn't bode well for him, but also meant that the bursting in guns a-blazing wasn't the option either, or at least not a very wise option, he was vaguely sure himself as a young man, in Hogwarts would rush in to find her. But he hadn't been that young man for a while, he doubted he'd ever be him again.

As the water became hot he plucked a cloth from beside the sink and began to wipe the contents of the potion from his wand.

"Well Brigadier?" He asked in a level tone, you seem worried.

There was some silence, Harry suspected that the Brigadier wanted to look him in the eye rather than talk to his back.

Turning around he grabbed the paper towels from the bench and looked up at the Brigadier.

"Well? Or should I just..." Harry trailed off. "Go there myself."

"No, Mr Potter, I don't believe that would be the best option." The Brigadier said almost immediately. "That location, is where several elements of UNIT believe is the central location of a terror and crime organisation. Individuals that have been affiliated with that location and their operatives have been linked to several incidents, murders, assassination and thefts around the United Kingdom and Europe." The Brigadier said, he sounded like he had said the information before, or read it in a report several time.

"What sort of incidents?" Harry asked.

"Thefts from UNIT facilities and other secure locations and incidents involving alien technology and other incidents."

Harry wondered if other was code for magic, or just other things that fell outside the UNIT's purview.

"We've been prevented from launching a co-operative investigation due to this facility's ties to some high up British connections and other issues. But this should help."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "What sort of connections?"

The Brigadier straightened slightly and told him.

"Oh. I wouldn't have put it past them." Harry said with a sigh. "They're very big on the 'for queen and country' job. So what next?"

"Now UNIT will take charge of this." The Brigadier said with some finality, but then walked forward and looked at him. "This is" He gestured the map. "And your help Mr Potter UNIT can shut down this operation."

"Okay Brigadier."

"I don't want you popping off to sort this job out yourself." The Brigadier said, as he maintained eye contact with him.

"Okay Brigadier, I won't go off on my own." Harry said carefully. He'd already decided that he _wouldn't_.

Dealing with who these people were, and if they were working with Ginny presented a unique problem and people with those kinds of resources, he didn't want to mess with them on his own.

Now he just had to wait, something he didn't like doing.

Harry wondered _just_ how long he would need to wait, and if it would cross over into when the Doctor encountered Omega.

-/

It turned out he needn't have concerned himself, less than a week later he was standing on a chilly moor outside of Glasgow.

"What're those over there Brigadier, behind the camouflage nets."

"Oh, you know they're camouflage nets then?" The Brigadier sounded disappointed.

"Yes." Harry said as he once more checked that there was a gun in the holster.

"Tanks Mr Potter."

"Tanks." Harry repeated. When the Brigadier had briefed him (away from the other troops) he'd got the impression this was a large scale raid but he didn't imagine that they'd need tanks, _plural_.

And Harry thought the Brigadier was going over kill with the planes that were about to start their bombing run. All were UNIT, this was a job that _couldn't_ be done by the British armed forces due to their target's unique relationship with the government. While their target's operations were illegal, they existed in a semi-legal state with the government and its other entities.

_But_ what UNIT was doing _was_ legal because of UNIT's mandate and its own relationship with the government and the armed forces.

It was all a bit complicated, but the Brigadier seemingly had sorted it all out and soon they'd be able to start shooting at things.

"Eagle is ready sir. Awaiting confirmation." Benton said to their side.

"Confirm attack run. Lets see what this energy field will take."

Which was the point of all this, UNIT had already in the past attempted a covert entry and there was some form of energy field surrounding the whole property, not to mention the high and imposing walls, which he'd at first thought were allusions, but no, just paranoia on the part of whoever was in charge of the facility.

They really knew how to choose the people to be in charge of places like this. Harry conceded, mostly to himself that they couldn't all be like Jack Harkness.

"Just about ready to start your light show Brigadier?" Said the Doctor who walked up behind them.

"Doctor." The Brigadier sounded somewhat surprised. "I thought you and Miss Grant were busy at a conference."

"I let Jo go off and visit her uncle. Now what are you and Harry up to this time?" The Doctor asked looking between them.

"Eagle 30 seconds to target sir."

"Very good Benton." The Brigadier handed the Doctor a pair of binoculars.

Then 30 seconds later a several planes flew over their target droping several bombs onto it, and what should have happened, following a carpet bombing like that , didn't. It just flared a very fascinating shade of chartreuse.

"What have you got involved with this time Brigadier."

"Tank assault confirm Benton." Harry heard the tanks nearest to them start up and swing around.

"Something you said during one of our conversations Doctor."

"And what was that Brigadier?"

"Every force field technology has a breaking point like any other defensive technology, I believe your words were 'throw enough energy at it and it'll break down'."

"Yes, that was what I said my dear fellow but-" What ever the Doctor was going to say was cut off by several tanks, all bearing the UNIT logo on them opening fire on the walls and house that was encased within it.

"Everything has a breaking threshold Brigadier, not everything can be found by shooting at it." The Doctor shouted during a lull in the shooting.

_Then _one of the tanks exploded.

The Doctor looked around. "There, front of the wall...my, my, that's a Bandril mining laser. Very difficult to hold."

"Benton, get Captain Yates to take him out."

"Sir."

A moment later another tank exploded.

"Continue assault." The Brigadier turned to the Doctor. "Any idea of how long that shielding will hold out?"

The Doctor looked briefly annoyed but stopped and considered. "I trust some of your men have cut their power off?"

"Please Doctor, one of the first things I did."

"Then they must have very advanced power systems to have held out this long, who are they I wonder?"

The Brigadier was about to open his mouth when something like a sonic boom exploded away from their target.

He turned to the Doctor who was holding his sonic screwdriver out in front of him, he smiled at the Brigadier.

"I folded back the energy weapon's main phasing array through a sonic loop."

There were several more explosions around the wall in front of them.

"Sergeant Benton?"

"Forces report declining opposition Sir..." Benton trailed off, looking across the land between them. "Sir...Doctor."

"That's not a good sign." Harry said as he let go of his binoculars to look at the sight without their aid.

A few explosions in the middle of the complex, where the main buildings were had frozen, like someone had hit the pause button on them.

"Fascinating, and terribly dangerous Brigadier, you didn't mention these people had access to time technology."

"They've stolen from several UNIT facilities, that's part of what makes them so dangerous." Harry said as he checked once more that he had a gun _and_ his wand.

"Brigadier, collect your men, we should sort this out soon."

The Brigadier thought for a moment, considering what were essentially orders dressed as suggestions from the Doctor. "Benton, full assault on the buildings. Come on Doctor, Mr Potter." The Brigadier said, but found Harry was already behind the wheel of _his_ Land Rover.

"Come on Brigadier." The Doctor said, throwing himself into the passenger side seat of the Land Rover.

"Temporal field holding at 42 thousand megavolts and counting. Temporal redaction current and phasing."

_UNIT_, how they'd found his this base was something he would really like to know. They had put several deterrents, both magical and alien based to _stop_ incursions like the irritating _UNIT_ sticking their noses into things that didn't belong.

He'd already sent all their current information to London. Although not everyone there could be trusted like his team, there were enough that knew what they had to do for Queen and Country.

"Sir, Jones is dead UNIT created some sort of feedback loop on the weapon."

He nodded, UNIT did come prepared, he had to give the insufferable UN lackeys that. Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart had kept this attack covert, none of his contacts within the government had informed him of this assault on his complex.

"I think it's time to activate **her**." He said with a smile.

"Sir...we've not even tested her strength and the bonding, her injuries..." He stared at his assistant.

"I'll do it myself. Take a weapon from the armory and defend the north quadrant." He said giving his assistant an icy glare.

He walked into the science-medical room, to **her** he was her Patron. To him she represented something of an experiment.

Hybridisation was something that very few people volunteered for, especially given the vaults of failed trials.

**She** had been in something of a mess when she had materialised back here, even ignoring the bullets she had been riddled with her mistimed auto-matter disintegration "disapparition" seemingly had been _badly_ mistimed.

It did give them a chance to apply several elements that had been waiting for an appropriate subject. **Her** mind was ready for an further appropriate mental preparation and reconditioning.

Metal connections removed from corpses replaced bones she had lost, while a poly-resin...filled in the gaps where blood and muscle once was.

Unfortunately, as was the case in previous trials, blood loss and rejection were the killers.

Quite literally, in this case **her** body's _magical_ ability both hindered and helped her.

Depending on which one won the day she'd either be even more of a walking corpse or dead.

For now though she would be what they'd designed her to be.

"Patron..." She whispered softly, she reached up to her eyes to brush a wisp of red hair away from her eyes. Her arm felt heavier, stronger, more...powerful.

"We are under attack. Our base is being invaded by hostile forces." He paused and pushed a weapon into her hand. "Here, defend the central corridor."

He watched with some satisfaction as **she** took the gun, with her enhanced strength she would be able to use the Cyber-gun to its potential, and give the others enough time to destroy anything that might lead UNIT back to anything of high risk to their organisation.

"There's a significant temporal field around the facility Brigadier."

"I can't see anything Doctor." The Doctor rubbed his chin in thought.

"No, but it's still there, I can...feel it."

"Feel it, Doctor my men are storming this facility and you're telling me what?"

"That we should be careful, when we enter we may be transitioning to a different time field, it may be disorientating, some weapons might not function close to the field. Radio will likely be intermittent."

Harry just shook his head, but with a smile.

"Marvellous Doctor."

"_Avada Kedavra_." Harry barked at a man who was firing a very nasty looking weapon down an opposing corridor. "All clear." He shouted down to the UNIT soldiers who'd bunkered down behind some fallen filing cabinets.

"Harry the Brig says there's...something in the main corridor, the Doctor's heading there too." Harry grabbed Benton and pulled him with him as he took off at a run.

Somehow he knew that this was important.

Despite being grabbed by him Benton fell behind as Harry ran faster down a series of corridors.

Then he turned a further corridor as he recalled which was the Brigadier said he was going. Then he was shot at, or more to the point _nearly_ shot at, someone grabbed him as an energy weapon fired off _straight_ at him.

"I think running straight into trouble might not be the best idea this time Harry." The Doctor said as he brushed himself down. Harry looked over at the other side of the corridor where the Brigadier and two of his men were looking a little frazzled.

"What-" He was cut off as another blast of energy hit the wall close to the door's alcove where they were hiding.

"I didn't have a chance to see."

"I'm going to chance a look." Harry said casting a disillusionment charm over himself and ignored the look from the Doctor as he eased out.

He wasn't immediately shot at, but he did recognise who was doing the shooting.

"The bitch isn't dead." He said mostly to himself.

"No I'm not Harry, but I do have excellent hearing." Harry threw himself towards the alcove where the Brigadier was.

"So that's _Ms Weasley_ Mr Potter."

"The bitch lives it seems Brigadier." Another blast of energy fire impacted near them. "Seems she can't let too many of those rip too often." Harry chancing a look out.

"Hi Harry, come out and die!" She called. Harry wondered why she wasn't coming to get them.

"My thoughts exactly Mr Potter. A-"

Harry shook his head. "Lets just say I know and understand your thinking." He pointed to the two men with him and made gestures with his fingers of shooting. He removed his own gun from its holster and held his wand in his main hand, the gun in the other.

They waited for the blaster fire and then jumped out, it seemed the Doctor had also chose this moment to jump out with his sonic screwdriver in hand.

Harry didn't wait and started shooting albeit not running to face her. The Doctor was doing something as the three of them, and it seemed more behind them joined firing at the single figure at the end of the corridor, though it seemed like only some of their bullets and his spells, stunning spells, which he was using only for economy of words were getting through, though the constant weapons fire did seem to distract the mad cow Weasley.

There were reinforcements joining her now, that was good, she had to defend the facility, for Queen and country, for her people, her civilisation...From deviants that would destroy it, from the maddness that was Harry Potter and the muggles who were drawn in by the creations of wizarding kind, by the shadows planted by the Ministry and she had to protect her world from the abnormal idiots who allowed their imaginations and psychosis of 'aliens' and the unreal to become a reality they ran around indulging in, like Harry Potter and his crusade against her and her associates.

The temporal field that extended around the facility would only protect her from an amount of the muggle weapons, Harry's spell fire _was_ getting through though it just felt like a mild potion. Like something George and Fred used to get the Gryffindor house mates to test out.

She stopped squeezing the trigger for a moment, memories flushing through her vision for a moment.

Then it cleared as she felt several armour piercing rounds go through her body at plant themselves firmly in the asbestos wall behind her.

-/

"We're entering an active time field Brigadier, some of your weapons may be less effective."

"Time field Doctor?" Lethbridge-Stewart asked as more shots from Ms Weasley's weapon and the other people who were supporting her narrowly missed the alcove there they were taking cover.

"Like the TOMTIT effect." The Doctor shouted as more of the Brigadier's men came around the corridor. "Be careful."

"_Greyhound 2 to Greyhound leader, support on your position."_

"Very good." The Brigadier barked into his radio as several more UNIT soldiers rounded a corridor behind them and came up them, adding to their firepower.

Harry rushed forward in the brief lull as the two forces fought more heavily with their added support they had a slight upper hand, even though the forces they were combating had whatever alien technology they'd pilfered from UN and other sites.

Harry took the offered rifle to replace his empty pistol.

"Armour piercing rounds." He said to himself with a grim smile. The Doctor paused from fiddling with his sonic screwdriver and talking or more to the point shouting at the Brigadier over the gunfire to frown at him slighty.

"I think we need to press forward and push the advantage Brigadier." Harry said quickly.

"Doctor is that thing ever going to run out of power?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I don't believe so Brigadier, you'll run out of bullets first."

"Armour piercing rounds then." The Brigadier shouted. "On my mark."

Then Ginny paused for the briefest of seconds in her shooting rampage. "Fire!"

Ginny dropped the weapon. The Patron had said she was invulnerable, but there were rivers of...she felt her chest, he blood didn't use to be that colour...

Then _he_ was rushing forward as those surrounding her fled or dropped their weapons.

"Harry bloody Potter, you sniveling, pathetic, deluded misanthrope."

"I think you've got the usage of misanthrope wrong." Harry said holding the gun against her head.

"Still the deluded wizard who wishes he could be a muggle." She smiled, licking her lips. "You've got no heart Potter. Avada-"

She was cut off as Harry shot her again through the shoulder, the linoleum in the floor crumpled.

"Oops." Harry grabbed the wand from her hand. "Disarm the enemy before taunting the crazy bitch. Note to self."

"Was that really necessary Harry?" The Doctor said crouching down.

"You like to surround yourself with them, don't you Potter, believers in the cause, a whole organisation that wants to protect the world from delusions that we put there." Ginny coughed.

"She's more psychotic than Davr" Harry started and then stopped.

"Who?" The Doctor asked.

"Never mind. Can she be saved?" Harry said, Ginny looked like she'd passed out. Possibly from blood loss.

The Doctor didn't say anything about the fact that he'd gone from shooting the psychotic mad cow in the shoulder to asking if he could save her life.

He had after all made and assurance to George about his sister, and if there was a chance...

The Doctor and had, while he had been musing on his responsibilities to his friends in a different century had pulled a pen from his pocket and dipped it into the puddle of blood, which, Harry thought to himself wasn't exactly the best colour for blood.

"Interesting."

"What's the prognosis Doctor?"

"I'll need to get her somewhere, I have some worrying ideas Brigadier, Harry."

"Sir, we passed a medical lab just down that corridor." Benton said, who had just rushed up, he was covered in soot.

"Very good Sergeant, you men, help the Doctor with this...prisoner. Potter, you're with me."

Harry paused looking at the woman he'd crossed time zones to imprison...or kill, or subdue.

"I'll look after her Harry."

"That's not my only concern Doctor." Harry said keeping an eye on her.

"Then my men will contain her Potter."

The Brigadier's men went to reach for the unconscious woman, but were stopped by the Doctor. "Put these on, just in case." He handed them some thick rubber gloves, Harry recognised them as highly rated biohazard gloves.

"I'll explain later when I have a better idea Harry." The Doctor said in a softer tone. Then added in a louder tone. "It looks like the Brigadier needs you."

"Wants me less distracted you mean." Harry said with a sigh. "If she makes any threatening motions, shoot her, kill if necessary." Harry ordered the Brigadier's men in a tone that wasn't to be argued with, had they not been pulling on the Doctor's rubber gloves he was sure they would have saluted.

Harry's killing curse struck the man who was waving a wand at a rock in his hand, cursing to himself.

"You got him. Good. What do you think he was doing?" The Brigadier asked him as they walked across the room to a set of blown out windows.

Harry grabbed the wand and weighed it in his hand. "He must have thought he could activate a port key."

"That rock?"

"Yes, I wouldn't touch it Brigadier. Like a lot of the things in this place, mucking around with things they have neither the understanding or intelligence to reasonably understand the dangers."

"You sound like the Doctor Mr Potter. And you're sure Carrington is dead?"

"No one survives the killing curse Brigadier." Harry replied with sad smile. "Almost no one." There were bodies around them, and others who were being cuffed by UNIT soldiers. Most had fought very hard, some had tried to escape, none it seemed had attempted to surrender. "For Queen and Country." He said looking down at the body.

"What now?" The Brigadier asked as he squatted down to check for a pulse on Carrington's body.

"That's their 'catch cry' as it were Brigadier. Or so a friend of mine says."

"The Doctor?" The Brigadier asked as he stood up.

"No, another rather long lived man, he's probably around here." Harry mused.

"Here?" The Brigadier shouted.

"In this time period Brigadier, no, he hangs out in Cardiff."

"Oh, you mean he's part of Tor-"

"Ah Harry, Brigadier, good to find you. Everything cleared up?"

"Doctor, quite clearly you've missed all the action. What of Miss Weasley?"

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck and became interested in the wall of computers that was on one side of the large room.

"What was that Brigadier?"

"What's happened to the bitch queen of psychotic behaviour Doctor?" Harry shoved his hands into his pockets. If Ginny was dead then he wanted to know and then he could deal with it, with a body bag and a preserving charm. If she wasn't dead then...

"She's not dead despite the significant injuries inflicted, but she may be even more dangerous than if she were fully alive."

Oh frak...Harry didn't like it when the Doctor ended on a cliffhanger sentence.

-/

There was a machine made of what looked like smashed computer and radio equipment, it was humming while making the area around it warm and imbuing the room with the smell of melting solder.

"I've rigged up a short term temporal field inducer. It should stop it."

"And what is it Doctor?" The Brigadier and Harry said at once, both looked at one another.

"It, my dear Brigadier and Harry is a weapon. It seems _Carrington_, the oaf has used this organisation's...which by the way, what's this facility called?"

"No idea Doctor." Harry said before the Brigadier could say anything. "You were saying?"

"What? Oh yes. Carrington appears to have trialled several mixes of biotechnology on Miss Weasley, she's had several bones and muscle tissue replaced with Cyberman technology, her blood, if you could call it that has been mixed with a poly-synthetic bonding polymer and her metabolism is running at about 150 percent. The only place I've seen that is the ooze from that Inferno project."

"Oh...shit." Harry said.

"How very succinct Mr Potter." The Brigadier commented unnecessarily.

"How all this is not tearing her apart I can only guess at some form of partial magical stabilising effect. But that's not the worst part." The Doctor paused, Harry suspected for dramatic effect.

"You said partial Doctor."

"Yes." The Doctor said pausing, rubbing his chin. "If her metabolism continues to interact with the elements within her body they will go into a runaway cascade reaction."

"What the devil does that mean?"

"How big a bang is that?" Harry asked, answering the Brigadier's question, or the question that would follow.

The Doctor was silent for a moment. "Given the power and the technology that _idiot_ has played around with, humans, they never learn, large enough to destroy this facility, at least."

"Can we kill her?" The Brigadier asked. "Would that stop this explosion?"

"No. It would accelerate it. No, the only thing that can help her is her, and time."

"Time?" Harry asked.

"By slowing down the quantum effect and inducing natural entropy the polymer and other foreign elements within her body can be broken down, however she will need to have several transfusions of blood from genetically familiar relatives to allow her to recover in any sense."

The Brigadier was nodding, Harry wondered how much of the Doctor's explanation he really understood. Harry did understand most of what the Doctor said and it still worried him.

"How strong a temporal field and how long?"

"At least 10 years, relative to the outside world, I'm unsure how much she would experience given the mental effects."

Harry stared up at the ceiling. "What about 30 years?" He asked after a moment of thought.

"Why 30 years?" The Brigadier asked.

"So Mr Potter can retrieve Ms Weasley from his own time. Yes! That could work, I would need to isolate the facility's power systems and use them to encase the building just in case of an overload, that would lock this location off from regular space-time and render the location inaccessible from any interlopers..." The Doctor began to mutter to himself.

Harry opened the door out of the lab as the Doctor began to write some calculations down on a blackboard.

"So that's your end now Mr Potter?" The Brigadier asked as they left the Doctor to his calculations.

"Nearly, I still need to get home, and I need to check around, just in case Ginny has had any effect on the timeline, or left anything anachronistic around."

-/

A week later Harry stood some distance away, watching Torchwood's facility.

The Brigadier's men had cleared out all the technology and anything else questionable that had remained.

Now they were just waiting for the Doctor to finish with whatever he was doing with the mobile UNIT HQ.

"I've aligned the temporal stabilisers in the facility and I should be able to activate a temporal shift" The Doctor said as he walked out of the mobile HQ holding what looked like controls for a remote controlled plane. "Now I just flick this button and..." There was a noise like the TARDIS and the whole facility, broken walls and everything disappeared.

"Where the devil has it gone Doctor?"

"No where, that is, it's still there, just removed, rather like TOMTIT did, it's lost between the moments of now and now. Harry I'll show you how to retrieve it later, for when you return to your own time."

Harry just stared, the Doctor had made, with basically a bunch of technology that Torchwood had amassed and a radio control from a model plane or something, made a huge estate disappear. Lost.

"Oh...I think I've just realised something." Harry said aloud.

"_So you've got Torchwood Three, where's the rest of them Jack?" Harry asked Jack and him were sharing a beer on a warm Cardiff night, watching people go about their lives. _

"_Torchwood One is in London, Two's with Archie, Four's been lost for a while, maybe one day we'll get it back."_

"_Maybe, how'd they manage to get it lost?"_

"Anything important Harry?" The Doctor was suddenly staring intently at him.

"No, just answering a question I didn't realise I had asked." Harry said casually.

-/

"Quite a few weeks Harry, so why are you going off now?"

"The Doctor's got some cosmic ray scientist coming in." Benton said as Harry shut the bonnet of his Jag.

"Scientists are rather boring Benton, how many visiting scientists bring something interesting to UNIT and it turns out _not_ to be a fleet of incoming warships and just dust on the lens?"

Benton shrugged. "I don't get into all that science stuff Harry, that's for the Doctor and Miss Grant."

Harry smiled. "Well, cosmic rays and black holes is all a bit boring for me, so I'll pop out for a bit and I'll come back when it's all sorted out." Harry opened the door. "Look after yourself John."

Benton watched the car drive away. "I didn't say anything about black holes." He said to himself.

Benton looked around in amazement at the interior of the Doctor's TARDIS, with the Doctor inside, but not _their_ Doctor, the other one whom he'd met with the Cybermen and Yeti and all that. He wondered, briefly, as the other Doctor stood at the TARDIS's controls if Harry knew about this, _of course_ he did, _that's _why he _wasn't_ here.

Harry watched through a pair of powerful binoculars and watched UNIT HQ come under attack by Omega's...whatever they were.

It was one thing for the Doctor to tell him vague bits of this, he knew the general things, but it was another to see it from this perspective, and then...UNIT HQ, the main building just disappeared. Which was something of a shock.

Considering his only way back to his own time had just disappeared up and away to a universe of anti-matter.

Bugger the knowledge that he had that it all turned out in the end, this was still worrying seeing it all just disappear, with three incarnations of the Doctor along with it.

A part of him, the part who remembered the Doctor, when he was younger, yet older, with Ian and Barbara and a little older and younger with Zoe and Jamie, he wanted to go and see them again. Or even meet Omega!

But the older part of him, the one with the knowledge of the timelines, the knowledge from the Doctor, Jack, Sarah and his own experiences taught him not to go there. He was already messing with time, in his own little ways.

It did give him considerable pause for thought if the disappearance of Torchwood Four meant that he was always going to come back here and stop Ginny in the way that they had, or if Torchwood Four had always disappeared and there was a multitude of ways that his and Ginny's altercation could have taken or...the whole thing gave him a bit of a headache.

He was here, now and what he had done was prevent any major or minor alterations to the timeline.

Now, for a time he was without anything to do, any loose ends had been checked and tidied up.

Now only temptation existed.

Despite everything he _could_ go to Hogwarts he _could_ see his parents, and Remus, and Sirius. Also even Snape and see Dumbledore once more.

_**If**_ he wanted to irrevocably bugger around with the time line.

But he knew coming here that it was a temptation, no matter how many rules it would break and how many heart strings it would pull on.

In the end though he went with his brain, he couldn't go, it would be a huge scar on his own personal timeline if he met his parents, before they'd met or conceived him. And he _really_ didn't want a _Back to the Future_ scenario happening. That would just be all sorts of wrong.

In the end he decided to go for a drive. Magister was long gone, they'd seen nothing of him after everything with Kronos and TOMTIT. There wasn't anyone around here in this time period that he could have a good long chat with about everything that had been happening.

As he drove towards London he looked around and found he was really starting to hate being stuck in this period of history. He _really_ wanted to be back in the 21st century. Back with his friends, where the war had been won, rather than brewing, where he didn't have to watch his mouth or who he walked into or met.

He once more _really_ sympathised with the Doctor and his exile to Earth.

-/

"Did you know?" The Doctor said as he walked into the lab. Harry looked up from a book he'd been reading. The lab was still a mess, he didn't want to tip the Doctor off that he was getting ready to leave, not just yet. The Doctor still needed to meet his younger self, back in the day.

To the Doctor's question he merely raised an eyebrow.

"Should I have warned you Doctor? About your future and what happened?"

The Doctor's posture immediately changed to defensive. "Of course not. That would be against the laws of time!"

Harry smiled. "And isn't it good to know the Laws of Time once more?"

"Yes, with the Time Lord's exile ended I can go anywhere." He smiled at him. "First a test, maybe to Metebelis III. Then we will need to meet." The Doctor paused looking at him with a smile. "For the first time."

"Time travel, never simple is it Doctor?" Harry said closing his book

"Only for those not adept and perceiving all the dimensions of time and space." The Doctor answered in satisfaction and confidence before walking off.

-/

Harry sat, waiting. The Doctor, Jo and Bessie had just disappeared from UNIT HQ, and at some point they'd return, from visiting himself, the younger him. 11 years old, innocent to what would come soon, the death, the love, the fun, the running, the terror. The experiences, the joy, the sadness, and everything in between. It was still strange, being able to look forward at his life like this, from the past, _before_ it all started.

"Ah Mr Potter, I noticed your lab's all packed up."

"Yes, I've packed my personal things into the Cessna, the other things UNIT might find a use for or something."

"You think he'll want to return you to your own time straight away?"

"I think the Doctor will want to get on with his adventuring, being stuck in one time zone, one point in time..." Harry trailed off dragging a hand through his hair. He'd been stuck in the 1970s for about a year, maybe a bit less, and it was really starting to wear thin on him. "I know a bit of what he's been going through and I _**really**_ want to leave this time period. No offence to you Brigadier, you've been of fantastic help."

"But you want to go home. Nothing to apologise for Mr Potter. You've been of much help here." The Brigadier said in a friendly tone. "Shouldn't you get out of the way, in case Miss Grant sees you when they return?"

"If she does then it'll be after she's already met me, me as a young kid." Harry said casually.

"Still..."

"Surprising yes. Seeing me age from 11 to now. But I believe Jo can handle it. But..."

"But...?" The Brigadier continued.

"She did have a difficult time accepting my association with the Master." Harry said thinking back to his years previous.

Before the Brigadier could further question his associations and affiliation the lab was filled with the sound of the TARDIS rematerialising in front of them.

The Doctor was the first out of the TARDIS.

"Ah, Harry...good to see you, again." The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck.

"Just seen me off?"

"Yes, well...yes. Jo, you can come out now." He called into the TARDIS.

"Really Doctor, why did you insist on rushing out, it's only UNIT HQ-" She said as she walked out of the TARDIS and came face to face with the Brigadier and Harry.

"Oh...Hello sir. The Doctor and I just...popped out for a bit."

"Quite alright Miss Grant, I knew where you went off to this time. Makes a change for once." He threw the Doctor a look, but the Doctor was just smiling to himself.

"Jo, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine, of ours, you might already know him."

"Doctor?" Jo asked looking between the three men, the third she'd only just realised was leaning against one of the lab benches smiling, watching them.

"Hello Jo, long time, relatively speaking." Harry greeted with a smile.

"Doctor? Who is this man...?" She trailed off as she stared into his eyes...his deep...green eyes, ones that she'd never seen before and never thought she'd see since..."But...but...that was in the future...and he's 11 years old and...and..."

"Well, you see Jo, time travel has an interesting consequences and..." The Doctor began.

"Yes Jo, it's me, I'm here, you've just met me, but for me it was more than 10 years ago. But I've time travelled back here from my future."

"I...I...don't understand." Jo looked between the Doctor, Brigadier and...Harry.

"You can talk about it while I pick up a few things. I trust you're all ready to go Harry?"

"Yep, the plane's all packed up with everything."

"What about your car?" The Doctor asked.

"Car?"

"Green E-Type Jag." Harry said in answer to Jo's question.

"That's _**yours**_?" She exclaimed, blushing heavily.

Harry winked at her. He and Benton had seen Jo and a friend posing and playing around with a camera one day. At least they'd been thoughtful enough to give it a polish after the amount of bare skin that had been involved.

"It's where I usually keep it. I wasn't sure..." Harry trailed off.

"Of course Harry, that was a gift, you're taking it back to your own time."

"Now?" Harry asked hopeful.

"No time...as they say. Now, I'll leave you and Jo to get acquainted and meet in the hanger." The Doctor said, walking back over to the TARDIS and opening the door.

"Going far Doctor?" The Brigadier asked curiously.

"Not at all Brigadier. Just across HQ. Care to join me?"

"The last time I got in that thing, Doctor we were in another universe." The Brigadier reminded.

"That was hardly me or my fault Brigadier." The Doctor defended.

"Come on, they'll go on like that for a while, let's waltz on over to the hangers." Harry said in a soft tone taking Jo's elbow.

"So you've really been here for...how long?"

"A while, more than 6 months." Harry said with a sigh, it was more like 10 months or more, he'd sort of lost count. Being outside of his normal time field, plus the rather haphazard method of time travel, according to the Doctor meant that while he'd been here he'd aged at a different rate. Burning off the chronon energy he'd picked up while time travelling. It was only in the past 4 months or so that he was aging at a second-per-second rate, that same as the rest of the people here.

Harry hadn't been sure what to do with this information, he _felt_ older, he'd been through a lot here.

Plenty of which he didn't want to tell Jo about, lest sully her idea of him.

She had enough problems with knowing his friends included the Master.

"Trying to capture this terrorist, and you've got him."

"Her." Harry corrected, automatically.

"Her?" Jo sounded surprised. "In that big flap that the Brigadier had organised a couple of weeks ago?"

Harry nodded. Jo looked around the hanger. "And you _flew_ here, back in time in that?"

"Not quite, not just in that. I'm sure that Doctor might explain, I used a...a temporal fissure of a sort." Harry started, he wasn't sure if Jo knew about Torchwood, it was something the Brigadier hadn't really mentioned, given that Harry wouldn't be in contact with Jo, or wasn't for the majority of his stay in this time zone.

"Like that stuff with TOMTITT?"

Harry shrugged. "Something like that."

"And it runs from your now...until here...now. I'm not sure I get it."

"Time travel, Jo is a complicated journey. Time...is...well she's something that is complex."

"She?" She laughed. "You sounded like the Doctor there for a moment!"

"I did?" Harry smiled. "I suppose I do sometimes. It comes from knowing him a long time."

"How long?" Jo suddenly asked.

"Since he was an old man, youthful, and when he's older and wiser and still young to the sight on first look, yet matured, scarred and journeyed beyond the years of some civilisations." Harry smiled warmly taking Jo's hand as the noise of the TARDIS filled the hanger, bouncing off of the walls and making it seem bigger and more beautiful and blue.

Then the Cessna slowly disappeared, to be replaced with a blue police box.

Jo looked down at Harry's hand, the little and big scars that were there, the same, she could see on his face and neck and where his shirt was slightly unbuttoned.

What had happened to the young, sweet boy she'd seen depart for school barely half a day ago? The boy, who despite knowing the Master was full of...

"Did the Master do...?" Jo looked down at Harry's hand.

Harry quickly let go of her hand. "No." Harry stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"We all accumulate scars Jo, not all of them physical. But these..." Harry rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. "Are the scars from life, from death and the experiences in between, they shaped me."

"But the Master..." Jo tried again.

Harry shook his head and sighed, a smile on his face, walking a few steps away from her to look at the TARDIS. "The Master and I are as friends now as I am with the Doctor and have been for many more years than you have known either of them Jo." Harry said turning away from where he was looking up at the TARDIS, it seemed...more full of life now, now that she had her 'wings' back with her pilot at the controls. "Don't get caught up in my friendship with the Master Jo. I will count him as a friend, as I do you. I hope you feel the same, regardless of my friends now, as then."

"I...I..." She blushed again, this time somewhat ashamed. "I'm sorry it's just, it's the Master. And of course, you're my friend Harry...it's just...you're so old!"

"Thanks for that!" Harry joked.

"That's not what I mean it's just..." Jo tried again, then the TARDIS door opened.

"Ready for the off?"

"Certainly, definitely, lets go!" Harry said quickly. "The sooner I'm away from this time period the better." Harry exclaimed. Jo looked at him, the Doctor gestured back at Jo, subtly, Harry turned around to see her looking a little hurt. "It's just, I've been _stuck_ in this time period Jo, no way home until I finished what I started."

"Like the Doctor?" Jo tried.

Harry nodded. "Exactly and, you never really think that it's going to get at you, the lack of the things you're most accustomed to, but this time period, the 1970s, this century even feels so different, it's like another planet to 2003 where I left, when I mean."

"Oh..."

"Yes...well, come along Harry, Jo." The Doctor said after a moment and disappeared into the TARDIS.

Harry gestured to open door to Jo and then followed her in.

It was still...big inside.

Not as big as it would be in the future, well in the Doctor's future, in his past.

Harry looked at the console, it had an almost _magical_ quality to it, not magic but other worldly, in the very real sense of the word.

"I suppose you know it's bigger on the inside." Jo said as the Doctor closed the doors.

"That there's a whole world in here, that she keeps it all together, with the Doctor's help of course." Harry said.

"Of course." The Doctor added for emphasis. "Now, adjust the temporal drift and correct for osmotic pressure waves and..." The Doctor walked around the console, adjusting controls and leavers before standing in front of a set of controls that Jo knew would make them take off. "Now." The dematerialisation noise filled the room and the central column started rising and falling.

"How long will it take to get there Doctor?" Jo asked.

"Well, no time at all Jo, we're outside time. That is, it'll take, as long as she thinks it will need." The Doctor answered.

"Doctor, you said that when we went to Atlantis."

"It takes time to ride the eddies of the vortex, to navigate the ebb and flow of time." Harry said as he dragged a finger around the console. It had a different _feel_ to the Master's TARDIS, a sensation he'd never really been able to compare before now. "She must navigate the paths and non-paths of space time to our destination. She needs coaxing, encouraging." Harry said pausing, looking over to the Doctor and Jo.

"Not quite how I would have put it Harry, but essentially, yes Jo."

Harry found a seat on one side of the console room to sit, enjoying the sound of the TARDIS as she travelled through time, he took a moment to practice his occlumency, not knowing if the TARDIS would be as curious as her pilot about the future, or even if occlumency could protect his knowledge, but he thought he should try, just in case. Just in case the TARDIS was as curious as the Doctor as to what was to come.

"It all turns out okay, for both of you." Harry murmured, his eyes half closed.

"What was that Harry?" The Doctor walked into the console room, studying an old leather bound diary.

"Nothing, just talking to myself and the TARDIS, or just myself." Harry said after a bit.

"Hmmm..." The Doctor surveyed the controls. "We should be landing quite soon I believe."

"Then there's something I should tell, or ask you." Harry said pushing himself out of the chair.

"Harry, you know the Laws of Time."

Harry shrugged. "_You_ don't even know them Doctor." Harry countered with a grin. "I just wanted to say...visit me."

"I always do, or will."

"No. You, not...others." Harry said awkwardly. "Come and visit me, take a break, we'll have a cup of tea or a pint and just..." Harry trailed off, his voice cracking slightly.

"Harry old chap..."

"Just drop in. Visit."

-/

Ioan looked across the yard from the sheds where Harry's cars were kept, he'd just finished replacing the oil in the Land Rover _again_, after their various encounters where the new vehicle had been damaged, running it around with new oil seemed to clean most of the magic residue that was in it out. This hopefully would be the last time. He thought, though he'd heard something in the yard, and then, there it was again, a wheezing, vworping sort of noise. Grabbing his mobile phone out of his pocket calling Hermione Granger. There was no point calling Judith, she was out, _negotiating_ with small town who had adopted what, according to a translation unit Harry had salvaged at some point was Posicarian light matrix into their power lines, it seemed it meant all the lights in the town never blew or needed replacing. While this was fine and seemingly on the surface a very good thing, it also created a null magic field, an inverse one at times at that. Magic didn't function in the town correctly and if a wizard or witch tried they'd fall ill and then if they attempted further they spontaneously combusted or exploded with messy results. It hadn't been an issue till now, but with people spreading out further, with the threat of Voldemort gone it was beginning to.

Obviously he couldn't have gone, no matter how removed he was from wizarding _society_ he still was one. Judith without any conventional magic was the only one, even if Harry had been here. Not that he'd reappeared since he'd flown off 6 months ago.

There was noise of someone running as he wiped his hands on a relatively clean rag and Hermione Granger came running into the yard between Harry's house and the out buildings.

"You heard something?"

"Listen."

Hermione tilted her head. "I think...I think something's coming though.

-/

The central column begin to rise and fall as the rematerialisation noise filled the room and then there was a thump and beep.

The Doctor pushed a button and Harry's heart began to beat faster and he couldn't stop himself from grinning. There was his house, and...his friends, not Judith though, but Ioan and Hermione, waiting, watching.

"Just a quick manoeuvre and..." The Doctor flicked a few buttons and the dematerialisation sound filled the room once more.

-/

Hermione stared at the police box, something she didn't think she'd see again, not since the last time she and Harry had met the Doctor, or actually the time before last that they'd met the Doctor, the Doctor and his TARDIS to be more correct. The one they'd met in San Francisco hadn't had his TARDIS.

"What's happening?" Ioan asked as the box began to disappear once more.

Only then two other shapes faded into existence, a plane and a car, with the box in the middle of them.

"Even in the past Harry manages to buy a car!" Ioan shook his head.

Hermione just laughed, amazement and happiness overriding her abaility to say anything, that now her friend had returned, from something she did in the darker moments wonder if he would return from, despite everything he'd said.

-/

In the TARDIS Harry was going through a similar experience.

"Thank you Doctor. Thank you. I know you have much of an idea how it was to be stuck in that time." Harry mock shuddered. "I understand fully."

"Now I hope you understand how foolhardy it was Harry." The Doctor reprimanded lightly.

"And I won't do anything like that again." Harry promised equally as lightly, making them both laugh as Jo came into the console room.

"What? I felt us land?"

"Yes, I was just dropping off Harry to his own time." The Doctor said as he pulled the door release control. "Well I guess we should bid you goodbye." The Doctor offered Harry his hand, Harry pulled him into a hug. "Thank you." He said as he did so as the Doctor returned the hug.

Stepping away he smiled to Jo. "And thank you Jo for everything."

"Aren't we going to go and meet his friends?" Jo asked as Harry stepped through the inner doors and out of the TARDIS.

"Time to go I think Jo." The Doctor said closing the doors.

-/

Harry stepped out of the TARDIS closing the doors. He doubted the Doctor would come out, not at the moment to see everything here. Too much...too muchness here, with his friends and Jo and everything.

As the noise of the TARDIS's engines filled the air he waved, watching the TARDIS fade away.

Harry grinned as he breathed in the fresh air, the 21st century air at that and then he turned around.

"Harry!" Both Ioan and Hermione shouted and rushed forwards.

"You don't know how good it is to see you two." Harry said, emotion filling his voice.

Hermione hugged her friend who was the same, yet different, his stay in the past obviously longer than it had been for them.

"You're...different." She said calmly.

Harry nodded and turned to Ioan. "I dealt with everything." Harry said with some weight. Ioan nodded.

"And Ginny?" Hermione asked, looking towards the plane.

"She's...a problem that still needs to be dealt with."

-/

_A/N:_

_Sorry about the delay on this chapter, I fully intended to complete it within a short amount of time of the previous chapter's upload. Then I decided to get involved in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and thought it'd be a good motivator to get some original fiction written, so writing 50,000+ words was the go during November. So during all of November I kinda lacked motivation to write two different stories. Then in early December I got about half of this done, and post-Christmas everything more or less following Harry's realisation of which Torchwood he'd "lost" was written._

_The story is finally back in Harry's present. Next chapter will hopefully not take 2 months to get posted, thanks to everyone who's stuck on and waited. _


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28**

Harry Potter, temporal adventurer, assassin, murderer, temporal vigilante...he didn't really know what to call himself at the moment, looked around his house.

He'd always been confident he'd return here, just...everything felt somewhat...odd.

It had been six or so months here, that he was "away" while for him it had been closer to a year.

Then there were the temporal-physical affects of his temporal transference and how that had affected him.

A shower and a change he'd decided he needed more than anything, to get out of his clothing of the past and return to the present. No matter how comfortable he'd come to be in these clothes that he'd continued to source, after the repeated blood stains and spell damage that befell his various pieces of clothing.

It was time to put, if just a small bit of the past away and begin the focus on the present, even if it felt a little distant to him at the moment.

-/

Hermione wrapped her hands around the mug of tea, Harry seemed...she wasn't sure.

Older, somewhat weary, maybe time travel did that, he hadn't said how long he had been in the past, and her researches on the subject had hit several walls of 'Official Secrets Act'.

Ioan had been of some help, ready to keep her informed in case he returned and Judith kept mostly out of the conversation, Hermione didn't really like her attitude in general.

Though as Judith had pointed out (on more than one occasion during the time Harry was 'away') Hermione wasn't _officially_ part of the organisation that Harry had set up; the League of Paranormal Investigations was something she had decided _not_ to be an active participant of. Barring the occasional outing where Harry requested she help of course, like that time in San Francisco with the Doctor and Fitz Kreiner.

-/

Harry wrapped himself in a large bath towel as he stepped from his shower and looked out across the fields, he could see the various installations that he'd asked Ioan to start working on when he departed, from what Ioan had said there was still another 2 or so months of work to go.

But hopefully when it was all completed and camouflaged he'd and the League of Paranormal Investigations would have a useful surveillance network that would be better at monitoring alien transmissions and to tap into UNIT and other security organisations' networks.

It was one of several things Ioan had begun under his instructions while he'd been "away".

Looking in the mirror he paused for a moment at the many, many scars he had accumulated. Not all of them physical, though those were the most visible.

Downstairs he was sure Hermione and Ioan were having a cup or a mug of tea, or possibly some other form of hot beverage.

At some point he'd need to go downstairs and talk with them, with Ioan and Judith especially, whatever would need to be done with Ginny they'd need to work together. It was him and his organisation that had been charged with dealing with her and her associates' actions.

He had dealt with the her actions thus far, and he had _**dealt **_with her associates. Now it was just the final clear up that needed to be attended to.

-/

The determination with which Harry delivered the news about Ginny was...worrying for Hermione.

Even when he came down the stairs he seemed changed, even more so than she (and Ioan and even Judith) had during Harry's absence.

Then he wrapped her in one of the tightest hugs she'd ever received from anyone.

"Hello Hermione!" He said as he lifted her off her feet. "It's good to see you again." He practically whispered to her as he lifted her up.

"Harry...can't...hug...breath." She managed to croak out as he put her down.

Then when she came back face to face with Harry, there was his smile, his joyous, happy face. Almost all trace of the man who'd gone upstairs had disappeared. Or at least that's what he wanted her to think, but she had far too much experience in dealing with moody young men, she'd been to school with two of them, and continued to...more or less, date a not so easily provoked red head.

She knew at least her red haired Weasley wasn't going to fly off to the past in a huff. Maybe go for a fly around the university with no care in the world...but then they'd both done that after several glasses of a cheap aquamarine coloured spirit that George had brought back following a 'research trip'... that was another thing entirely, but that night with Ron still made her smile uncontrollably, and even the following morning's projectile vomiting session didn't detract from the memory.

Then she realised Harry was looking at her oddly.

"What?"

"You suddenly got a strange smile of your face, like you were giggling at a joke that only you know about."

She took a step away from Harry. "I'm allowed to laugh at my own jokes Harry Potter." And she didn't care how silly that sounded, _he'd _just accused her of _giggling_.

"It's fab to see you again Hermione."

"Fab?" She stared at him. "Fab." She repeated.

Harry shoved his hands into his jacket's pockets. "Excellent to see you."

"You have been stuck in the 70s haven't you? Was everything groovy as well?" She teased.

"Like I was on another planet." Harry replied and continued on his way to the kitchen.

"Ioan. You were right, a shower did do me the world of good."

"You had the look of a tired man Harry." Ioan said clapping Harry on the shoulder. "Just got a call from Judith, he job's going to be at least the rest of the day."

Harry nodded. "It's waited 30 years, it can wait a little longer." He said mostly to Ioan, though Hermione looked up as though she'd heard.

"You succeeded then? The past is safe?" She asked.

Harry nodded. "You're all still here and not under the tyrannical reign of a psychopathic delusional woman with designs on the overthrow of wizarding society and the eradication of considered thinking." Harry commented casually as he made himself a cup of tea.

There was some silence. "Oh." Hermione said after a moment.

There was some silence. "Can I ask...Harry...is she..."

"Is the mad bitch Ginevra Weasley alive?" Harry asked with such casual malice that it shocked Hermione and surprised Ioan.

"Erp..." Was all Hermione could manage.

Harry turned around from the kettle, keeping his face neutral. "Operational security Hermione, I can't confirm or deny her status."

"But...but...she wasn't with you or in the plane." She frowned and looked at him cocking an eyebrow. "You haven't got her stuffed in the boot of your car have you?"

Harry laughed. "No. She's not in the back of the Jag."

Hermione exhaled slightly. "But you can't tell me anything more than that."

Harry shook his head.

Hermione thought for a moment or two. "Fine. I guess you've learnt some new phrases as well as 'Fab', 'Operational Security'..." She shook her head with a smile. "This is what happens when I'm friends with a man who runs an organisation that deals with magic and aliens."

"And all the stuff in between."

"Yes." Hermione's phone then beeped and she pulled it out to look at it. "That's my lecture reminder." She said in apology.

Harry took both her hands. "Rush off you your lecture Hermione, I'll explain everything I got up to...later."

"Later, when it's not part of your 'operational security'?" She asked looking at him, studying his face.

"Probably." Harry said with a shrug.

"Good enough from you Harry Potter." She said letting go of his hands and smiled to Ioan. "Ioan."

"Hermione." He said as she departed, through the door. She preferred to apparate from the driveway, the house and out-buildings contained a lot of alien technology that sometimes made apparition or disappariation difficult.

Harry found himself leaning against the kitchen benches, while Ioan remained silent.

"So." Ioan said after Harry had made himself a cup of tea and they'd walked around the back of the house to look out onto the fields.

"So, the work here should be ready...?" Harry started.

"As I said 6 months, it's be ready when everything is finished to our specifications. So...Ginny's followers."

"Dead." Harry said, taking a sip of tea.

"And Ginny?" Ioan asked curiously.

"Theoretically alive." Harry answered. "It'll be easier if I explain everything when Judith is back here." Harry said, swallowing more tea. "How've you two been coping?"

"Without you Harry?" Ioan said.

"Yes, without me, your glorious leader, imperator," Harry paused and smiled. "Master."

Ioan laughed. "Megalomania doesn't suit you Harry."

"Maybe if I had a big flowing robe?" Harry chuckled.

"Or if you weren't gesticulating with a mug of tea?"

"Quite, yes!" Harry exclaimed.

-/

Judith looked him over.

"You look like shit Harry."

"Killing my way through Ginny's followers doesn't exactly put one in a mood to sing about daisies."

Judith shook her head. "It's hanging out in the 70s, all that military food." She stopped abruptly and then smiled. "Or were you worried about the _Back to the Future_ issue, 'shagging' a relative?"

Harry shook his head with a smile. "Thank you Judith for bringing down the conversation to a level that it's about getting my dick out."

Judith grinned leaning into the chair. They were sitting in Harry's sitting room following an evening meal.

"Dragging this conversation back to the present, rather than about sex. I'd like to get this discussed so I can go home?" Ioan said as he poured himself a glass of Harry's brandy.

"Fine. I'll explain with some brevity then."

Judith whistled. "So she's part alien bomb that needs to have her blood transfused and replaced otherwise she'll take out a sizeable chunk of the British countryside. And you've hidden her behind a temporal blanket for the past 30 years."

"Succinct Judith, I don't know how I managed without you all this time."

"You didn't Harry, if you had you wouldn't be agonising as much over the little bitch's minion's deaths."

"You warm my heart sometimes Judith." Harry said with saccharine sweetness.

"So you'll be briefing the Minister I trust?"

"Ioan's hated the contact he's had to have, even in letter form." Judith said by way of explanation and no subtly to Ioan's discomfort.

Harry nodded and looked to Ioan guiltily. "I didn't think you'd get any contact from him while I was gone, I'm sorry Ioan."

Ioan just nodded. "I'll bid you good night for now and then we'll need, I assume to deal with the final end to Ms Weasley."

"Whatever that may be." Judith said.

"Needlessly ominous Judith." Harry commented as he finished his brandy.

Judith just smiled sweetly at him. "I try Harry, to inject some gravity into the situation."

-/

Harry shoved his hands into his pockets as he passed through the various sections of the ministry. He'd dropped in early this morning, but the minister had been 'indisposed'.

He wasn't sure what that meant, but he wasn't going to barge in, not for this, this needed to be explained carefully.

For now he was just going to keep his head down and a voice bumping into anyone.

Which didn't help when someone walked into him.

"I am sorry." Said a female voice. "Potter?"

Harry looked up from the bit of floor he'd been looking at and tried to remember the name of the woman whose voice sounded familiar.

"Daphne Greengrass." Harry said with a warm smile.

"Ms Greengrass." She corrected.

"_Ms_ Greengrass. And what brings you to the hallowed halls of the Ministry?" Harry asked curiously.

"Merely filing some papers for my father and sister." Harry raised an eyebrow. "An annulment." She added, not really enlightening Harry much. "And what of you Potter? In trouble with the Ministry, again?"

Harry smiled a secretive smile. "I would hardly be wandering the corridors of power were I at issue with those with power Ms Greengrass."

"Then...?"

"How about we have a drink later, say 3 o'clock and we can talk about it?" Harry launched the question randomly.

Daphne blinked and stared at him as he continued. "The Whistle and the Elephant, it's about a 10 minute walk from North from the Leakey Couldran."

"A _muggle_ bar?" Daphne said, wrinkling her nose.

"Where else to have a clandestine meeting with me; Harry Potter?" Harry smiled at her and turned to continue to his destination.

"Where indeed." Daphne said as she watched him leave her in the corridor.

-/

"So they're dead." Minister Shacklebolt repeated.

Harry sighed. "Yes. With no chance of coming back."

"You're sure..." He trailed off and looked at Harry's hard expression. "Of course you're sure Potter."

"You seem to have accepted what I've told you about Ginny with marvellously casual aplomb." Harry frowned slightly and wondered where he'd picked up a word like "aplomb", there were only two people that came to mind.

"What I want Potter are choices, to do with Ms Weasley now."

"I can retrieve her any day, but to make her safe you'll need a team from St Mungo's probably a muggle-knowledgable surgeon or two, blood replenishing potions and-" He was cut off.

"There's more?"

"You'll need both Arthur and Molly Weasley, as well as their siblings in order to completely replenish Ginny's blood and remove the contaminated blood. I'll want to hang on to that and all the parts you _remove_ from her body."

Shacklebolt felt like he needed to sit down, except he was already doing so. "Couldn't you just have killed her?" He asked with a sigh.

"It wasn't an option."

"And if it had been, would you have taken it?" He asked, he _wanted_ to know Potter's answer.

Harry remained silent for several seconds, and only answered when those seconds threatened to turn into minutes. "If it had been the only option, then yes, but you gave me leave to return her alive. She committed a crime, one I'm sure you'll find a _wizarding_ method to deal with." Harry paused and met the Minister with a gaze. "And just before you suggest it, I'm going to counter you, _I _and my organisation _will not_ be responsible for her rehabilitation."

Shacklebolt frowned and looked at Potter. "That hadn't been my initial thought. The Unspeakables requested some weeks ago the chance to _study_ her. They have the facilities to best deal with issues such as Ms Weasley."

"Interesting." Harry commented. "That you should have given this so much thought."

"I didn't Potter. But your organisation seems to take more of this ministry's focus."

"The 21st century is when everything changes Minister." Harry smirked. "But, I will endeavour to take a more proactive stance, now that I have returned."

This seemed to placate the Minister. "It will take some time to consolidate resources to deal with this issue Potter, somewhere away from St Mungos I think." The Minister said, seemingly talking to himself.

"On the mainland, within..." Harry looked around for a map that he'd noticed hanging on the wall. "Within 100-150 miles of here."

"That's where she's being held?" Shacklebolt asked from his desk.

Harry shrugged. "Somewhere, I don't want you to be too hasty and try to finish her off."

"Why?"

"Because she'll take with her a large amount of the British countryside."

-/

Daphne Greengrass did not take random men to bed with her, and she most certainly did not go to bed with men from her childhood school, and certainly not in a _muggle_ hotel.

She had plenty of the right sort of friends who knew, that as wizards and witches of a certain age they had urges, desires that needed alleviating, and one could do so, in the calm and privacy of one's home. They were tasteful, well to do people, groomed correctly.

She most certainly did not bed someone with as many spell burns, scars, stab wounds and Merlin knew what else covered the man's body.

Daphne Greengrass allowed her hand to play over the man's damaged, marked, scared skin as he lay with his eyes lightly closed.

It was a _nice_ muggle hotel, he certainly knew to take her to a _good_ hotel, though she was sure some form of persuasion was at work to make her go along with him.

Yet, Daphne Greengrass hadn't left the bed she was currently sharing with the man whom she had accompanied.

When she had male companions to alleviate the urges they both felt, with the security of contraceptive charms and salves of course, they each departed, when the act was done, either to the bathing rooms, or away, to their own homes.

Yet, here she was, still in bed, following _coitus_.

She had of course made sure to cast all the contraceptive charms, even though the man had used a _muggle_ device for _his_ protection, it was, how the _muggles_ did things without magic. Yet, that wasn't what fascinated her, here in this bed.

"Are you done tracing each of my scars?" Said the man gruffly as he opened his eyes, though he continued to stare at the ceiling.

Daphne Greengrass wasn't sure what to say, her hand frozen, as though she had been caught doing something she shouldn't.

"You're the first woman to see me naked like this in a good half a year." He admitted, his voice softening slightly.

_That_ would explain the man's wild-nature, it had been something of a surprise for Daphne Greengrass, her past companions were vigorous, all witches and wizards were. To arrange a meeting to alleviate urges, you needed to be. But this man had been, something more, with something hidden behind him, something she hadn't noticed there before.

She had noticed it in the _muggle_ tavern, the change in his personality, since they'd last met.

"Shall we go again?"

_That_ was something her previous associates practically _never _said, it just wasn't the thing to ask when accompanying a witch or wizard to bed for mutual _alleviation_ of desires.

Harry rolled over in the bed and for a moment wondered where he was. He wasn't in UNIT HQ, then he checked himself, he was back in 2003...or was it 2004 and...

Daphne Greengrass was at the foot of his bed lacing up her boots.

"You're awake Potter." She said as though she were addressing a business meeting.

"So I am and you're...?" He trailed off.

"Leaving." She said looking around the room and waved her wand, all of his clothes landed on one side of the bed in a neat pile. "It was a fascinating experience." She paused as he pulled himself out of bed and smiled

"Same here." Then he upgraded his smile to a grin.

"Good afternoon Potter." Daphne Greengrass said after a moment.

Harry mock saluted to her. "And to you-" She disapparated before he could finish his sentence.

-/

The new Land Rover Defender had been ordered shortly after the previous one had been pretty much mangled beyond general use, though Ioan had while he'd been away brought it back to some semblance of life.

Ioan had joked they'd save it to use during the zombie apocalypse and then slightly panicked looked at Harry. He'd merely shrugged and said "Buggered if I know."

But the new one which had been a substantive business expense had been modified with military grade materials it'd survive hopefully anything that was thrown at it. That included magical attacks, alien assaults and any other form of temporal, physical or psychological assault, and if it couldn't there was always the anti-tank guns, of which they could fit at least half a dozen in the back.

"So, an empty field is where you've been hiding little miss Weasley." Judith said as she appraised the area.

It hadn't changed at all, except for the approach track, it had gone, replaced by a fence with a some form of sign that _used_ to say something angry in red writing, but had now faded away.

The track was totally over grown, but they'd found their way, mostly because Harry was driving and he remembered the way, like it had been last week.

That said it _had_ been last week.

"It's so weird being here." Harry said to himself only to have Judith clap him on the shoulder.

"Never fear Harry, you're back in the 21st century, with hardcore porn on tap, you can't smoke on any flights and everything comes with warning labels." Judith voiced with a smile.

Harry breathed in a breath of the fresh air. "Ah yes, the century where I don't have any enemies and I'm not constantly worried about turning a corner and finding minions of my nemesis on the street corner."

Ioan chuckled beside them. "Only you Harry fill a sentence with words like 'nemesis' and 'minions' and it not sound ridiculous."

"So, what now, you're going to magic up a building?" Judith asked as she looked around.

Harry took a cable Ioan was offering him, it was plugged into the cigarette lighter socket in the Defender.

"That looked suspiciously like a remote control for a model aeroplane." Ioan observed as Harry checked he'd wired everything up. The Doctor had showed him how to do it, by manipulating the controls he would slowly be able to bring the building back into normal space-time, but he'd need to exactly align the controls for the temporal shift. With the technology the Doctor had left in place he would be able to shift parts of the building back into space-time, hopefully keeping _most_ of the building out of sight.

Where Ginny was kept would still stay in stasis no matter what as that was separately wired up from everything, the Doctor had assured him that the equipment would keep _her_ contained until they got her somewhere to deal with the problems. But they'd brought a biohazard patient transport box...thing to put her in, _just _in case.

"Pretty much." Harry said, but then murmured, partly to himself. "But like a TARDIS, not at all."

Then before them there was a whipping noise, a noise unlike anything yet familiar to the moors around them and then a crumbled, damaged entrance swam into view.

Harry felt tingles travel up and down his spine, seeing this again, with his friends, knowing that if he looked away it wouldn't be the 1970s, that all around him, around the world and the universe it _wasn't_ the 1970s.

"You've still not told us what this place you found to keep her in is."

"I didn't?" Harry said looking to Ioan with a smile.

"No. So?" Judith asked shifting the backpack, similar to the one Harry and Ioan were carrying, each was armed, _just_ in case. The Doctor hadn't said anything might be lurking, but shifting something out of time for 30 years, who knew what might have got in and was plotting to take over the universe, just hopefully it wasn't a Chronovore or a Vortisaur.

"Welcome, to Torchwood Four." Harry said as he opened the doors.

"You, Harry Potter managed to hide Torchwood Four from the mighty Torchwood organisation?"

"I did attack it with tanks and an air strike first." Harry said with a grin. "Well, UNIT did that, I watched with binoculars."

Ioan shook his head, Torchwood hadn't been a huge part of the wizarding culture, but in some of the fringe areas that he'd initially tried to gain more acceptance, before he was totally shunned by the general populace had had some exposure to the Torchwood menace.

"You know your way around then." Judith said as they walked the corridors, still lit by the generators on sight.

"It's weird, 30 years and yet, last week. Time travel." Harry shook his head with a grin.

"So that's her, the bitch queen who started all this, buggered up everything and sent you on a temporal manhunt to the era of flares and genetic purity lunatics."

"Succinct as ever Judith." Harry said. They three were standing at the door to the room where Ginny had laid, outside of time barely any time had passed since she'd been shot, repeatedly, 30 years or so ago.

"So there she is in own very own _Back to the Future_ Delorean from the past reveal moment." Ioan looked to Harry and Judith who just shook their heads.

"Well I'd better get in there and check everything's still working." Harry said and heard the safety be clicked off the gun Judith had holster a moment ago, Ioan was also holding his wand.

"She took several bullets barely 12 hours ago. Relatively speaking."

"Relatively speaking she's, by your own description a 'psychotic bitch with enough alien technology to eradicate a large portion of English country side'." Judith said mimicking his voice disturbingly well.

It was again a bizarre sensation of deja vu, walking in and seeing Ginny lying there, dead-like. Everything was as it was, there wasn't even any dust to suggest the passage of time, it was truly weird.

Harry made a mental note to ask the Doctor about it the next time he dropped round, or the next time Harry saw him, whichever would come first. Or ask Magister about it, but Magister was much less likely to drop in the same place twice, unless it was to mock UNIT or the Doctor. But he had much less of a love for Earth's (or another planet's) history, unlike the Doctor.

Double checking the equipment he let out a breath he'd been holding, everything was in working order, and all the connections were in place to be able to hook up a few battery packs they'd brought with them to power it away from this place.

Ioan let out a breath of air as he exited the room, Judith just looked at him shrewdly.

"Well?"

"Now we've got to box her up ready for the move."

"Just like slaughtered cattle off to market."

Ioan and Harry looked to one another at Judith's comment.

"Only remotely like that." Harry said. "Do you want to keep guard, just in case, while Ioan and I fetch the bio-box?"

"I think that's very wise Harry." Judith eyed the room.

"Judith seems more on edge." Harry said to Ioan as they walked outside into the wind once more.

"We've had to deal with a few things while you were away." He shrugged. "Nothing too bad, but let's just say we're glad you, with your knowledge and experience are back from the back of beyond."

"It was the 70s, not really the back of beyond, more somewhere that flares and blood purists liked to like." Harry said, unlocking the back of the Land Rover Defender, inside was the plastic box in which they'd restrain and contain Ginny until they transported her to the Ministry's location they'd chosen to 'contain and remove' the alien technology within Ginny.

Not that they were calling it "alien", it was a 'foreign malfeasance' that the specialists from St Mungo's was to be dealing with, with everything they were removing to be taken away by them; the League of Paranormal Investigations. Harry had admitted to Ioan and Judith that it was good to finally be able to refer to the organisation, the one they were a part of, rather than being part of UNIT, while doing the 'other' things on the side. Like _removing_ people, _permanently_.

Now that he was back in his own time, any _removing_ would at least be within context of their organisation, he'd have assistance, help, people to talk to. Not the...dearth in the 70s, even though it was just and necessary...it was still a bloody period in his life.

Maybe if he'd managed to get a shag while he was there he'd feel better about the time he'd spent in the free loving 70s, but he'd been too paranoid about shagging someone who'd turn out to be someone he knew in his present...or something. Carol Bell also wouldn't give him the time of day and threatened to put his bollocks in a vice, or run them over with her car or chop his todger off with a meat cleaver.

But he'd felt very much more upbeat, having returned to the 21st century and his...'meeting' with Daphne had been unexpected and interesting, very much both, interesting and unexpected.

"Is it still a one night stand if you don't spend the night?" Harry mused as they walked along.

"I'm sorry?" Ioan called backwards from where he was carrying the front of the biohazard box.

"Is it-" Harry repeated again, still somewhat musing to himself.

"That's what I thought you said."

"What did Harry say?" Judith said as they put the box down by the door.

"He wants to know if it's a one night stand if you don't spend the night."

"Ah, men and their discussions. Thinking about your dick even when you're dealing with a psychotic ex, Harry Potter." Judith punched him, relatively hard on the shoulder.

"What?" Harry said rubbing it.

"It depends if you do it again, if it's once off, maybe it's a one night stand, if she's classy it's a dalliance with a stranger." Judith said casually. "Now shall we deal with the bitch and get her into the box and discuss our glorious leader's sex life another day?"

-/

Judith had spent the entire drive reached around the back, keeping an eye on the box that held the still in stasis Ginny Weasley. Keeping an eye and a gun on her.

The house was unassuming in a wood down the end of a track that never saw any vehicles, with horses probably being the only form of transport that had travelled along it regularly. It was a good thing they had a four wheel drive as anything less would no doubt not have made the creek crossing and up the bank on the other side amongst the other obstacles that littered the track.

There was no impressions in the grass outside the house, though it was well trimmed, not cut by mechanical means, but still well trimmed. Only the smallest amount of foot traffic around the very front of the house.

Nothing seemed disturbed by their arrival, despite them likely disturbing something, given the lack of any combustion engines having been here any time recently if ever.

"This is..." Ioan trailed off looking around.

Harry turned off the engine. "Ioan-" Harry looked to Ioan sitting beside him looking out. He looked back to him, his face of neutrality mixed with concern. "Stay here I think. Judith?"

"Yes?"

"You come with me, I'd like your...skills just in case." Said Harry as he looked out of the windscreen. "This windscreen is the toughened variety right?" Harry asked looking out of the window again and back to Ioan who smiled.

"Yes Harry, should I worry?"

"No more than usual." Harry said as he got out.

"The great British countryside, murderers, suicides and cannibals." Judith said as she breathed in a breath of air.

Harry smiled. "Now I remember why I missed you so much."

"My charm?"

"Exactly, well, lets see if we're going to get shot." Harry said, patting his pockets absent mindedly.

As they approached the door opened of its own accord, inside the lighting was provided by lamps, lighting the dark corridor which seemed to lead naturally to a room off at its end, off to one side.

"This isn't at all worrying." Harry said to himself, his wand out as they walked slowly down the corridor. "What's wrong with Ioan?"

"He had to deal with some Ministry goons while you were away, put him in a bad place for a while." Judith answered promptly.

"Should I sort it out with the Ministry?"

Judith smiled a casual almost secretive smile at him. "_You_ have learnt something in your time away, and not just the ability to use 'shag' convincingly."

"Or I could take him out for a drink or a meal."

Judith smiled like a cat. "That is much less interesting."

The door was ajar. Harry and Judith looked at it, Harry shrugged and pushed it open and walked in, and promptly had at least four wands pointing at him.

"Ah, just like old times, wands pointed at me, next I'll be tortured in a cellar, maybe we'll be tied up!" Harry called backwards to Judith. "I can tell you all about my friend who used to know a hermit and the daisiest daisy he ever saw."

"What are you prattling about Potter?" Said one of the men.

There was a click of a safety coming off a gun behind him. "That's my friend, she's got a gun and will likely use it." Harry said looking to the men around him, and then realised one of them was a woman, with a really short hair cut. He mentally said 'oops' to himself. "I thought we were all here for the same thing, or at least not to shoot at me."

"We are, Mr Potter have you brought the patient?" Said a fifth voice further inside the room, there was a woman dressed all in white, in similar garb as those he'd seen in St Mungo's, though looked to have an extra layer of protection on it than he'd seen previously.

"The patient's outside, I trust these _people_ are here for security."

"Yes." Answered one of the men, they had lowered their wands once Harry had started talking to the Healer, and had totally ignored their wands. Judith _hadn't_ lowered her weapon.

"Good, when will the Wealseys be arriving?"

One of the men nodded to another of them.

"There's an out building with a fire." The same man who spoke initially said by way of explanation.

"Good." Harry walked forward, there was high table in the room with hefty looking restraints, there was also a small raised area which could have been a pillow, or the suggestion of one.

"I'm Healer Craddock," She said and gestured to man on the other side of the "My associate Healer Williams."

"You've been informed by the Minister as to what will need to be done." Harry asked, his voice devoid of emotion.

Craddock nodded and gestured towards a shelf to one side of the room. "We have everything ready, the Minister mentioned you would handle disposing of all...waste."

Harry nodded. That was something both he and the Minister had agreed on, he would get rid of all the bio-waste and any other bits of alien technology that was within Ginny. They had several large bio-waste containers shrunken in the Defender.

"They're arriving now." Called one of the men from the corridor.

"Looks like we'd better get the..." Harry trailed off and shook his head. "Patient."

"I'll stay here, watching surgery with a group of incantation-happy meat-heats isn't something I really want to do." Ioan said as they arrived to get the box that contained the cultural and temporal terrorist Ginevra Molly Wealsey.

"Doesn't have a ring to it, like Voldemort did. Ginny Weasley." Judith said, who had the uncanny ability to encroach on his internal musings.

"Voldemort is" Harry shook his head. "Was I mean a different sort of psychopath." Harry said as he threw on the backpack that contained the shrunken biohazard containers.

Judith holstered her gun as they took hold of the box.

"Ioan, be ready." Harry paused and looked at him. "I have my concerns as well." Ioan nodded.

Harry could hear Molly Weasley in another room berating the 'guards' as they walked.

"Oh my." Said Healer Craddock.

"Yeah." Harry said as they placed the box on a table beside the bench and released the top of it.

Then Judith and he removed her from the lower half of the box, placing her on the bench. Healer Williams rushed forward placing the restraints on her, Judith assisted.

Harry carefully removed the stasis equipment, still running via its batteries.

"She's in a form of stasis, I'll remove it when you're ready." Harry said by way of an explanation of the contraption.

Healer Craddock just nodded. Harry took the opportunity to unshrink the biohazard tubs.

They were all an electric red colour with large biohazard symbols on them. "For blood, biomatter and any _other_ things you remove." Harry gestured to the tubs, they'd brought twice as many as they thought they might need even in a worst case scenario, _just_ in case.

Williams took them to one side to set up charms to direct the blood flow.

"Harry." Judith murmured close to him and motioned with her eyes towards the back of the room where one of the men was eyeing them with a look of concern, bordering on worry on his face.

Harry wandered over.

"How violent is she going to get?"

"What do you know?"

"Enough, the Minister said you'd be of great assistance." He said gruffly, while chewing his lip.

"Have your people cover the windows and the doors, and once the surgery starts don't let anyone leave." Harry looked him in the eye. "Stun them if necessary."

"And her?" He gestured towards Ginny.

"She needs to face what she's done, best not kill her, I've worked _very_ hard to get that little bitch back here."

"That's my daughter you...! Harry?" Said a voice and then a woman who walked in.

"As I said, stun if necessary. If that doesn't stop her" Harry nodded towards the surgery area. "Blast chunks of her body away, I trust there are some good anti-apparition wards in place?"

The man nodded.

"Good, she likes the apparition as a means of escape, even through wards." Harry said with a smile of remembrance. "If I'd been a little quicker I might have brought her back in a barrel." Harry said with a slight quirk of smirk.

Then the rest of the Weasley family walked in. Harry hadn't expected that, but the Minister said he had to consult with the Healers as the best course of action to _save_ the psychotic bitch queen of cultural-temporal terrorism.

"Heya mate." Said George and Ron.

Ron hugged him. George offered him his hand and then pulled him into a hug. "You found her, I don't know what you did but..." He said as he hugged him.

"I couldn't tell you." Harry said honestly. As they pulled back and George looked at him, worry, concern and several other emotions streaming across his face, his hand, going up to scratch where his ear _used_ to be. Ron looked from his brother to his sister, torn.

"Is she..." Ron swallowed.

"She's alive, that's what you're all here to sort out." Harry said.

"And then, Harry, we know you..." Ron looked at him. "Hermione said you didn't explain, just that you got Ginny...I..."

Harry shook his head. "I can't say..." He trailed off looking to where Molly and Arthur were being held back from Ginny's bullet ridden body, still in stasis. "I located where she was and brought her back, alive." _More or less_. He added mentally.

"She just said you looked rough and that if you looked rough then...Ginny...Mum and Dad wouldn't say what..."

"_What_ is going on Harry?" George asked looking between Harry and Ginny.

"You're here to save the life you your sister."

"Save?" The both exclaimed looking at him.

Harry maintained a neutral expression. "You know Ginny got into something" He shrugged with a sigh. "She got into something which hurt a lot of people and had the potential to affect a lot more. In the process of her actions she was effected, you're here to right that." _Hopefully_. He added again mentally. _If not we might need to take more __drastic__ actions. Hopefully that wouldn't be necessary._ Harry shut down that line of thought, Judith was giving him a knowing look.

"Mr Potter, we're about ready."

"You should join your parents." Harry said.

"Why Harry?"

"Because this isn't going to be pleasant." Was all he said.

Harry looked at the straps that were holding her down, along with the physical restraints that Judith had double checked there were also magical bonds.

"You're ready then." Harry said after a moment gauging the restraints.

The Weasley family were looking on, Molly having been quietened and ordered not to speak unless spoken to by one of the men with wands.

"Yes, please release her." Healer Craddock said, her wand out, there was also a large array of tools behind her, including things that looked like scalpels and other instruments.

Harry stood in front of the stasis equipment, that the Doctor had cobbled together all those years and barely a few weeks ago. There was a fzzt as something shorted as he powered it down. Immediately Ginny's chest began rising up an down and the bullet holes began to ooze once more. Harry slipped the stasis device into his bag and stepped back a little to where Judith was standing, her hand on her gun, though it wasn't out, yet he knew she could remove it, likely in less time than it would take him to say Avada Kedavra.

Then Ginny started to struggle and no doubt attempt to apparate.

She then looked around and seemed to ignore her family instead zeroing in on him.

"Well, it's the bastard who tried to gun me down, where's your toy army with their doctor?" Harry thought she'd finished before she added. "You delusional, deviant filthy bastard."

Harry stepped forward and clapped. "Welcome back to the land of psychotic living Ms Weasley."

"Ginny...I..."

"Mum..." She whispered and then looked to Harry. "So you did it, _you_ brought me back."

"I wasn't going to let you pervert the timeline Ginny."

"You're the perverted deviant Harry Potter."

"We should begin." Craddock announced.

Harry nodded. "I'll just be here." Harry stepped backwards a little.

"Yes, leave me to be _surgically_ operated upon, you step back with your minions Harry Potter, pity I have none of those to comfort me." She shouted at him.

Ron took a step back and saw Harry taken a weapon from one of his 'associates', one of the people who worked with Harry, this one was likely Judith. Hermione had said she didn't _like_ her, which meant she _really_ didn't like her.

Ron could see why.

"Blimey Harry..." Ron looked over to where the Healers were getting ready, and where they'd gagged his sister.

"You knew she'd gone off the rocker a bit." Harry said in what was probably the understatement of two centuries.

"I know, I just, didn't know, _my _little sister would go..." Ron breathed in. "She's a total nutter!"

Harry smiled, Judith chuckled beside him. "That's putting it lightly."

"What happened to her 'minions'?" Ron asked curiously.

Harry opened his mouth and then thought better of it, then opened his mouth again and his shoulders slumped.

"They were dealt with, Harry had little choice in the matter." Judith said after Harry paused a few times.

Ron looked to Harry who nodded. "Yes, I dealt with them and the manner through which I...made safe the area in which they operated in displeased Tsar Ginny."

"Tsar?" Ron looked at him. He'd heard Hermione intone in a similar way, it was probably something from muggle history. Hermione was always on him to read a bit of the muggle world, about the wars and inventions and stuff. And to continue to learn to drive. Harry seemed to like it. Though Harry also seemed to hold the muggle weapon, the _gun_ very easily as well.

Ron let his mind wander so he didn't hear the shouts that were turning to screams, all coming from his sister and quite audible, despite the gag.

"What's...what's happening."

"I believe they're starting the operation, you'll probably need to be there."

"Why?"

"For blood." Harry's response made him shiver.

Ginny had somehow spat out the gag. "Hello _little_ brother, and _George_, cavorting with the delusional _deviant _over there?" Ron looked to George slightly open mouthed, or at least he would have been, had the other Healer not put a mask over his face. The masks were of muggle design, as was some of the equipment. He'd seen some of it on the _telly_ programmes that were showing on Hermione's _telly_.

"Need any help?" Came Harry's voice from across the room, he seemed quite chirpy.

"With Ms psychotic terrorist he means, not the blood letting." Called Harry's friend...or whatever she was, from what Hermione had said she _wasn't_ his girlfriend.

Since Harry and...since he and Hermione had been together and then apart for a time and then together and whatever they were doing he and Harry hadn't really chatted or met for a while and Harry had never mentioned anyone after his sister.

"Ron wake up." George shook him.

"Typical, his sister, lying _abused _by the Ministry's lackeys and medical pigs and my _little_ brother day dreaming about the suggestible _alien_ worshipping _Potter_."

"Sit here please Mr Weasley." The Healer said as his associate stuffed the gag back into Ginny's face and tightened it, not with magic, it was held on like a belt buckle.

"Just call me Ron, there's too many Mr Weasleys here."

"Yeah and they're all dad. I'm George, don't mind Ginny." George said, scratching his ear-hole as he tried not to look at his little sister. Her body laid almost bare and covered in sterilising solutions. There was also the blood and...other things that weren't blood, or anything else that he could even find a word for.

-/

"You bring me to the nicest of places Harry." Judith had holstered her weapon but stood with her hand on it as the Healers operated on Ginny.

There was another 'clunk' into one of the plastic biohazard tubs as another piece of alien technology or bone, or whatever was dropped into it.

The first time they'd done it he'd been surprised at such a loud 'clunk', but now that they'd gone past the tenth piece he'd given up being surprised and now it was just the sounds of the operation.

There was of course the barking / screaming from Ginny, the Healers had noted that the daren't use any anesthetics muggle or magical lest they interfere with what they were doing.

He wasn't sure how he felt about himself that he was glad that she was suffering through it. Harry put it down to one of those elements of his personality that had accumulated during his time in the 1970s.

The Ministry's men and women stood around stoically watching and waiting. Harry wasn't sure who they were precisely, whether they were Aurors, or part of the Minister's detail or Unspeakables or what. They weren't the run of the mill people, but aside from their initial contact they hadn't tried to initiate a conversation, so they'd remained silent while he and Judith chatted about random things, while occasionally talking about the operation.

The casual and somewhat callous nature of their conversation earned them some _looks_ from Molly and Arthur Weasley. But neither said anything.

"They're still going then?" Ioan asked as Harry walked out of the house.

Harry nodded. "They said will be at least another hour or so, I saw them with a bunch of pepper ups, for the Healers, not for the mad-cow."

"Mad-cow?" Ioan asked curiously.

"Something I started to call her when I was, back in time."

"In the groovy 70s." Ioan chuckled. "Where you managed to meet aliens, murder and a semi-secret Intelligence Taskforce."

"I _meant_ to meet them." Harry smiled. "And the other things I knew were there." Harry said leaning against the bonnet of the Defender.

"Should I be worried that you're out here making small talk? Do I need to break out the small arms? Or that box of explosives?"

Harry looked up at the trees and back to Ioan. "Not yet, no."

"And the meat-heads?"

"Still quite meaty, though now they've gone stoic and quiet. I just needed a break, there's only so much real-life long-form surgery you can watch-" He was cut off.

"And chat with Judith."

"That too. I think we should go out, after we've sorted this, have a drink and _talk_."

Ioan looked at him and back to the house. "Alright." He paused looking around him and back to the house. "Yes."

"So, anything else interesting happening?" Harry asked as he sidled up next to Judith.

"While you were out having a slash?" Judith asked casually.

"If I needed to relieve myself I wouldn't have taken that long." Harry commented.

"For a dangerous surgery involving blood, screams and mayhem Harry this is quite disappointing in its lack of rivers of blood and bile flowing across the table and covering the floor." Judith said nodding her head towards the table, earning herself and Harry some curious glances from the Ministry's representatives.

"I've had enough bile from the mad-cow recently Judith, and blood come to think of it." Judith punched him.

"Stop recriminating about what you did back then." She dropped her voice and stood slightly closer to him. "It's not as though you could've asked nicely for them to stop, _and_ you couldn't have brought them back." She punched him again, _harder_. "And you knew what you were getting into."

Harry rubbed his shoulder. "You really know how to make me feel better."

"And to emphasise my usefulness in that area every time you get recriminating mood I'm going to inflict some form of physical pain on you."

Harry smirked at her. "Is that so I learn to externalise my 'pain' rather than internalising it."

Judith shrugged. "That works as best as my reason."

"What's your reason?" Harry asked after a minor pause.

Judith just shrugged non-committally and turned her head motioning towards the Healer who was walking towards them.

"Healer Craddock..." Harry said, trailing off as he realised he wasn't sure what he was going to ask and saying 'Will the bitch make it' might have sounded a little bit angry.

"So, will the bitch make it?" Judith asked, _again_ managing to pre-empt his thoughts on various matters.

The Healer was totally unfazed by Judith's questions, and Harry noted as an aside totally benefit of blood. For an operation that was quite bloody from the outset everyone the Healers and most of the work surfaces were quite blood free. Magic was like that though, quite blood free, except when the situation called for it.

"Yes." She said totally ignoring Judith and instead focusing in on Harry.

"That's...well..." Harry stuffed his hands into his pockets, despite everything he'd gone through in order to get _her_ here, there was some small part of him that wasn't so much so _wishing_ that she died here, but hoping she some how expired, through Ginny Weasley's own faults. Again, he wasn't sure what he felt about this piece of him. He felt the same way about the part of him that was disappointed that she was going to live.

"That's..." Harry repeated again. "Good for the Ministry."

"And I imagine when they're lucid, her family." Craddock motioned over to where the Weasley family were being attended by the other Healer. "We had to remove a rather large amount of blood and other elements from her blood relatives to ensure she didn't expire."

Harry just raised an eyebrow. "I did imagine that given the extent of the..." He trailed off again trying to think of a good vague comment on what was within the mad-cow Weasley. "Additions within her body."

Craddock merely nodded. "We have placed everything used, including the instruments in the tubs you've provided. My colleague and I will allow you and your" She paused looking to Judith "Associate a moment to check everything."

"Thank you."

"She liked you." Harry muttered as soon as the Healer was out of ear-shot.

"I'm likeable by everyone, and everyone who isn't...they can be killed." Judith said with a chilling careless abandon where upon Harry understood she meant every word.

"That's not why I like you." Harry said as he walked forwards towards the woman who tried to kill him, and he wished her dead. Yet, he'd saved her life.

The gag was in place, though she was still conscious and eyed him with focused anger communicated just through her facial expression and eyes. She'd been crying, obviously through the pain, but it was the burning hatred that still shone through her eyes.

A part of him wanted to lean into her and tell her how all her followers were dead because of _him_, that she had no hope of escape, because of _him_, that her psychotic little plan wouldn't come to fruition because of what _he'd_ done. But he didn't do that, that sort of attack worked better with an audience.

Harry joined Judith checking around the operation area, everything had been cleared down and the Healers had even written notes and stuck them to each of the tubs noting in some detail what each of them contained.

"Everything check out?"

Judith lifted one of the smaller tubs, checking it for its weight and nodded.

"All looks in order." Harry nodded, patting down his pockets and removing a roll of tape and proceeded to check the tightness of the lids and seal them thoroughly with tape.

Ioan had the engine running as they loaded the last of the barrels.

"Eager to leave?" Harry asked as they got in.

"Remember I did research into the many ways of the Ministry and their alien encounters, occasionally they had _bad_ encounters."

Ioan threw the Defender into reverse gear in order to complete a U-turn.

"So?" Harry said and was thankful he'd put his seat belt on and that he and Judith had strapped in the containers tightly.

"Weasley's now clean of any alien-tech, but the house isn't."

Judith sighed. "It's a pity, that place would have been great for one of those make over programmes."

"What?" Harry said to Judith as the building exploded behind them, Harry watched as the flames promptly extinguished themselves and the remaining construction crumbled to dust in a ball of fiery sickly orange spell fire. "What?" Harry repeated.

"They don't do it often but it probably means Ginny Weasley will be released at some point." Ioan continued.

"Rather than just." Judith made a strangled noise as she dragged a finger across her throat.

"What...so...they destroyed the building so there's no evidence of the operation having taken place..." Harry trailed off.

"And anything Ms Weasley might be heard to say about it is just her feeding on the general populous wizarding explanation." Ioan continued as they slowed to make it along a dried river bed.

"Oh...Clever." Harry said as he leaned into the seat.

-/

The room was deep, deep within the Ministry, it had been his fortune or mis-fortune to discover that these rooms existed when he became Minister.

Officially the rooms didn't exist, they had none of the grandeur of the courtrooms, nor any of their grandiose imposing states, these rooms were rather plain, windowless and totally impervious to magic. Any transformation, be it animagus or otherwise was _disallowed, _so said the Unspeakables. There was no form of magical monitoring that functioned in here, nor could you cast any spell, potions _failed_ in here.

According to some hypothesises from the Unspeakables this room had been one of the founding parts of the Ministry and had become so bathed in spells, from magic of clashing and differing styles it had come to _repel_ and act against it, forcing its presence from the room.

They also postulated, that a witch or wizard left within the room for a lengthy amount of time would go mad, or loose their magic, having it forced from them entirely.

That was one of the grim options on the table for Ms Ginevra Molly Weasley who was _mostly_ recovered from the operations performed on her a fortnight ago. Since then she'd been under _close_ security in her home. Her relatives had also been under _close_ security, but she was the only one who had officially been under security, the others were there just in case they got 'ideas' about moving her.

She was sitting on the table watching him like a dragon.

"So Minister Shacklebolt what have you got for me?" She leaned forward, her hands making a hard metal clunking noise from the hand cuffs as she placed them on the desk. He legs were similarly secured. "Now that Potter has delivered me to the Ministry."

He looked at her face and into her eyes, he'd seen plenty of people with that look. Plenty of people after the war continued to rabidly believe in Voldemort.

But then there was her interesting certainty as she would think it, belief was too light a word for conviction of her standing. It was always those whom you did not expect.

Harry Potter for one, there had been _a lot_ of people who thought he would enter the Ministry. But he did something else _surprising. _No matter how much what Potter did he _hated_ to acknowledge it was a _surprising _move.

"_Even if I am delusional, can you take the chance that a delusion might become real?" _

That had been what Potter had said to him, and Potter and his League of Paranormal Investigations had proved capable. Despite people aware of his existence thinking that he was especially delusional.

"I have several proposals about what to do with you." He said after several moment's thought.

"Killing me I suppose is one of them."

"Potter could have done that." He challenged. Weasley laughed, or cackled, leaning right back in her chair and laughing up at the ceiling.

"He may have shot me, cursed me and done other things to me" She smiled at the Minister. "But to kill me wouldn't be in Harry's character."

Kingsley totally disagreed with her on that front, killing _was_ in Harry's character. But it was a sign of how much he cared for the other members of the Wealsey family that had born out in the extraordinary lengths he'd gone through to bring this woman back from where she had escaped to.

But where she had been did present options.

"Officially we've removed all the Dementors from Azkaban, but there's always a need for their services, no matter how grim." Kingsley said watching her.

She was...dangerous. Her actions had proved that. Her actions whilst in this century weren't exactly acceptable, but they could have been dealt with. It was her actions in the previous century that had become concerning and how far she had intended to go was what made her dangerous.

There was also what the Unspeakables' equipment said about her.

Ginevra Molly Weasly stared at him coldly. "I've looked into the face of insanity, seen wizards, who I knew, throw their sanity to the wind and spout off their 'confirmation' of _aliens_, their deficiency and delusion in things that have never existed. If people like that exist then perhaps the touch of a Dementor will help me withdraw from the world and see it in a new light."

Kingsley tried to remember when he'd met someone who was such surety.

"You're somewhat unique Ms Weasley, with your situation and experiences, killing you would be an inefficient use of resources."

She started to speak once more. "So perhaps the Veil then, shall I join 'Uncle' Sirius, Harry will be so pleased his Godfather will have some company from his dear departed _ex_-girlfriend." She said sarcastically with a sneer.

Kingsley smiled at her, which seemed to throw her slightly. "You are partially-right Ms Weasley."

"Oh?" She looked at him surprised.

"Your experiences, as I said have left you as a unique specimen, there are several individuals within the Ministry who are curious about you. And as you can't talk of your experiences to anyone, there is a perfect place for you."

-/

**A/N:**

_I kept adding to this chapter, hence its slightly later appearance than was forecast. _

_Yes, Ginny's alive, I wasn't going to go through everything that she and Harry have been through just to kill her or throw her in the Veil or something like that._

_Now that Ginny's run has plateaued somewhat I should explain my original plans concerning Ginny and Harry and everything._

_Way back, when I was trying to stick to canon I had intended to follow right through and make Harry and Ginny end up together (despite not exactly liking the pairing). Obviously it panned out differently._

_But originally I always had the 1970s arc planned, and Harry and Ginny were always going to come apart because of Harry's understanding of aliens and Ginny's opposite stance. _

_In my original plans Ginny was sent back in time (or went back herself), but had no followers with her. Harry would have followed her back because of his love for her despite what had gone before. In the 70s Ginny would have come under the control of 'Associate' (who was an extremely vague character in my plans, the name was the only thing that was really defined), he became the Patron. _

_His control of Ginny would have been more insidious, and may have been a wizard using alien technology. He'd have had far more control over Ginny and she'd have carried out 'stuff' in the 70s for both Muggles and Wizards alike (likely working against the wizarding and muggle governments and UNIT). _

_I even wrote around a page of a chapter that would have taken place during the events of 'The Stolen Earth' featuring Harry and Ginny, when I get to the chapter that focuses on those events (or close to those events) I might add it within the Author notes of that chapter. _

_Thanks for reading._


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29**

"Ron told me about Ginny." Hermione's voice was calm, though Harry fancied it hadn't been when Ron had told her the details, maybe he didn't give her the _whole_ details.

Though one look at her face, despite her voice being calm her face betrayed the concern about everything.

"Ginny is no longer my concern." Harry said neutrally.

"You don't know what the Ministry's done with her?" Hermione asked.

_Not technically, vaguely sort of_. "No." Harry replied sipping his pint. They were in the courtyard of a pub near to Hermione's university's rooms.

There wasn't anyone around nor would anyone notice them, a few spells on his and Hermione's part. They could have chatted anywhere, but it was nice to be outside. Even if it was a little cool.

"I..." Harry started and then re-thought it.

"You've changed Harry, since you went back there." Hermione observed.

"The 1970s, yes." Harry said leaning back in the aluminium chair.

Hermione gave him a look. "More than that Harry Potter. I'm worried."

"I'm worried too." Harry muttered to himself. "I don't think you want to know the full extent of what I did in the past."

Hermione looked at him for several seconds. "Have you told your" She paused considering the next word "associates about it?"

Harry nodded.

"Then tell me the bare essentials so I can stop worrying about you." She tried to smile.

Harry sighed. "Some of Ginny's followers made it there with her. They...I...they" Harry shook his head. "Any extra-temporal people in that timezone with Ginny's ideologies in their heads were a danger to the timeline."

"Oh." Hermione said after the slightest of pauses.

"I could have killed her you know?" Harry said looking at Hermione. "She apparated through some quickly and badly placed wards."

"You setting up wards _quickly_?" Hermione interjected lightly.

Harry glared at her. "I'd already shot her several times prior to that and then again later even more so...but." Harry looked up at the overcast sky, it was already some ways through, Christmas having come and gone without too much incident. _That_ would be something of a rarity soon. "Killing her might have been easier. But I couldn't." Harry shook his head. "I wanted to at some points. _Really_ wanted to."

"But you didn't Harry." Hermione fixed him with a look.

Harry wondered if she needed to know, just _how many_ bullets he'd put into the crazy bitch of the west.

_Probably not. _He decided.

"That makes a difference." Hermione continued.

Harry allowed the relative quiet hang for a short while and then nodded with finality. "So what's on your plate for 2004?"

"Study." Hermione's answer was short and made both of them smile.

"The great studying archaeologist Hermione Granger." Harry proclaimed throwing his arms out.

"Stop being so melodramatic Harry!" She commented with a huff.

"What's the point of being an eccentric if you can't be a bit melodramatic some of the time?"

"I'm also beginning a magic-course in addition to my study that will allow me to study magic-related sites."

"Magic-related?" Harry asked slightly puzzled.

"You have no idea how many magic archaeological sites there are! It's really amazing Harry and they want muggle-trained people because they _admit_ that muggles have better equipment for this sort of precision work and have been at it professionally longer."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Well 'anything ancient is in books'," Hermione's tone was distinctly disdainful as though she was quoted something. "So any real in depth discovery of the past is a relatively new idea, it's a little bit strange but Ron just sort of said 'that's the way it's been done'."

"And Ron? I haven't seen him since Ginny's..." Bat-shit crazy ranting session slash operation Harry wanted to say. "Procedure."

"He's doing some of the course with me!" Hermione announced in an overjoyed manner. "It's a combination of some of the Auror elements and other parts. According to the man who oversees this part of the ministry it's somewhat dangerous going onto magical archaeological sites."

"So you might be able to top Bernice Summerfield's tales, or are going to try more for Lara Croft?" Harry asked in a playful tone.

"We already tried that after Ron saw the movie..." Hermione blushed deep red as she realised she had started talking without thinking.

Harry laughed, and continued to laugh as Hermione tried to regain some composure, then she punched him.

"Do you put on a posh accent and wield guns?" Harry paused in his laughter. "Who'd have thought Ron _and_ Hermione Granger indulging in role-playing, sexy role-play at that."

"Instantly Harry Potter's mind goes to sex, imagining your best friends, _maybe_ I was just saying...in a casual sense." Hermione tried to say in a serious tone.

Harry grinned at her. "Because Hermione Granger would blush like that about regular role play, like muggles going and pretending to live in the 16th century and battle knights and dragons." Harry shook his head.

Hermione raised an eyebrow. Harry sighed. "Just something I found out about over the new year's period. The pub near Ioan's place, it was one of the meet up places for the other sort of role play. The non-sex kind."

Hermione punched him again.

-/

Harry looked around him. There wasn't anything too strange about this part of London. _Except_ for Shakespeare's Globe a totally accurate reconstruction based on original plans discovered some years ago by the British Museum. Which sounded like some nefarious group had released the plans, or maybe some equally nefarious group had just decided to de-classify them, after all nothing _that_ bad happened to the original Globe Theatre.

Except there was something on the tip of his mind about Shakespeare and the TARDIS, but it was when he'd been recovering and Cedric and everything like that.

Harry smiled sadly to himself. Cedric Diggory was one person he wished had never died, even more so than Sirius some of the time. Cedric may not have had his life entwined in the war, maybe he'd have got out of the country, maybe he'd have fought and escaped. Sirius would have been involved somehow, maybe he would have survived, maybe...

Walking away from the reconstructed Globe Theatre he checked his sketched map and began to walk.

He'd been lead here by the 'box of things that aren't urgent' or as Judith put it the 'Can't Be Buggered box'.

They were things had been sent to LPI for their attention by the Ministry, or others, but hadn't made any noise or hadn't been marked urgent, or weren't glowing or anything like that, and had basically been left until Harry had returned so that they could all throw their full attention at it.

And now that he's had conversations with both Judith and Ioan regarding their interactions with the Ministry of Magic and other entities while he'd been away...it had been decided that among other things Ioan refused to be in contact with most of the pig-headed people within the Ministry, his working relationship with several people seemed to have soured considerably while he'd been not-enjoying himself in the past.

Most of the things in the CBB Box were relatively minor things, requiring investigation, what the League of Paranormal Investigations did. Most of them acknowledged that some of "the organisation" was "incognito", but it seemed they just wanted to dump these problems somewhere and they'd been told to send it his way without knowing who they were sending it too, most likely it was just so they could cross their Is and dot their Ts on their little forms and be assured that it was proper and correct even if it didn't appear that way.

Crossing across Southwark Street he started to look for the shop. According to this Drew Fuller, the wizard who'd sent the covering note of parchment there was a bookshop located near the train line selling "_transgressive and questionable literature that may undermine the Statue of Secrecy and may affect the correct pursuance of rules and regulations under which the Ministry of Magic operates"_. It was more the "transgressive and questionable literature" that had Harry interested.

With Judith _still_ sorting out some Drahvin thing and Ioan finishing the communications network work at his house Harry'd elected to begin investigating this one alone, if it turned out to be anything interesting or dangerous then he'd call in his 'associates' as Hermione had called them.

It was a bookshop, close to the railway line.

According to Fuller's notes he had _attempted_ to apply some Muggle-repelling charms to stop people going in and therefore close the shop, but to no avail. The charms _"failed to adhere to the construction materials and/or decoration used on the premises."_

Harry fancied looking at Drew's quill work that he was fairly officious man, but seemed happy to be able to pass the problem onto someone else.

The window displayed a variety of books, all of which seemed normal.

He watched as people came and went, some looking at the window, others walking straight in, none of them seemed to be witches or wizards.

"Now what questionable literature is there to find here I wonder? Hmmm?" Harry muttered to himself as he stepped into the shop, the wood flooring creaking under his feet.

_Technological Theories and Explorations by Elizabeth Klein with additional material by Johann Schmidt_ was possibly the first indication that things in this bookshop were not exactly on the level. Considering, firstly it was an essay seemingly not released for publication, and secondly it had the Nazi flag stamped on every second page with "security vetted" written on it...plus there was the sketch of the Doctor's TARDIS on one of the pages. That made it all the more odder.

Harry hung onto it and continued to wander and it was in the fiction section, upstairs that really surprised him.

It was a book stand with 12 different books with a sign above that read "The Adventure of Harry Potter".

Harry rolled the thick essay and shoved it into a spare pocket of his jacket and picked up one of the books that was titled. _Harry Potter and the Dark Awakening_. It had a picture of a stone on the front and what sort of looked like the Hogwarts express, if the Hogwarts Express had been blue and had carried trucks full of broomsticks and jelly beans.

It was more amusing and worrying, though he was mostly ambivalent in his response was to the writer's interpretation of events. This "JK" person who had written it. He couldn't find anything beyond those initials inside it.

Flicking through the book some things were totally wrong, he'd never, ever, let Ron borrow his toothpaste. But the final parts of the book, the chess game, the potions and this fictional Harry's battle against Voldemort. There was some, quite a bit of truth to those.

And there were **12** of these books. Looking around for something to shift the books with he found a trolley obviously used by the shop to put away the books and bought 5 of each one of these 'Adventures'. The shop keeper didn't even blink by the amount of books, just loaded them all into boxes and then wandered off to make a cup of tea, which conveniently left Harry to shrink them and walk out.

"So, we're investigating a book shop." Judith said looking at the pile of books on the table.

"What are these Harry?" Ioan eyed the pile of books that he'd covered with a sheet and the large bound essay with the Nazi flag stamped on it which he hadn't.

"They're books." Harry said as he removed the sheet with flourish. He'd since read all 12 of the "Harry Potter and the..." books.

It was rather weird reading his "adventures" laid out for all to see, thankful though this "JK" person had only got about half their information right, some things were just down right weird. Like his relationship with Draco Malfoy in book 5, or the odd "Mary-Sue" person who turned up in book 6 proclaiming they knew everything and had seen it on TV, and she promptly disappeared shortly after. There was the odd sub-plot in book 10 which suggested that Snæp the Master of Potions was Harry's father. Which was a little strange.

Then there were some that struck fairly close to reality _Harry Potter and the Trials of a Wizard_, book 5 in the series, which reminded him of the Triwizard Tournament, but there was no rescue by the Doctor in this "JK"'s rendition of things and there were two people killed by Voldemort the Great.

On the whole it had been a truly surreal week of reading through these things. In the end he'd decided it was an amusing bit of fiction.

But according to several of the books he'd vaporised in order to get a clear energy reading they didn't belong in this dimension and they had an alter-energy reading across most of the lower-energy flows according to his energy scanner.

Which meant they'd need to investigate.

"_Harry Potter and the Prisoner's Dilemma_?" Ioan read the title and looked at Harry puzzled.

"_Harry Potter and the Death of a Hero...Harry Potter and the Serpent's Dream._" Judith said as she and Ioan looked through the titles. "Harry, have you been writing your autobiography under a pen name?" Judith asked.

"And while you were drunk?" Ioan said as he closed book 10 _Harry Potter and the Awakening of Night_ shaking his head.

"I felt like I'd been drinking when I'd finished these." Harry tapped what was the final of the 12 books; _Harry Potter and the Darkness' End_.

"So some person's been knocking out bad versions of your life? Unless you really did..." Judith winked at him. "With the three girls from the Snailtusk's group under the stairs."

"Sadly _my_ life was more fraught with danger and less full of sex."

"Which explains a lot Harry Potter." Judith chastised lightly with a satisfied smile.

Ioan pulled a face. "So you didn't get it on with this Cho woman?" He said as he said as he closed _Harry Potter and the Journey of the Order._

"No, nor did I, after spending time in a coffee shop, did I go and have a variety of romantic and somewhat disturbing encounters with various Slytherins and Hufflepuffs." Harry shook his head. "But, a few years ago the Doctor did mention something to me along these lines."

"The ole-alternate universe thing, where somewhere you've got an eye-patch and Ioan's a dominatrix and we've got a fascist leader?" Judith commented lazily before Harry had a chance to say anything.

Harry had a look of surprise on his face. "Science fiction or actually listening to me when I talk about conversations I had with the Doctor?"

"Science fiction, Harry, you can't expect us to listen to you _all_ of the time, what are you, our employer or something?" Judith smiled.

Harry exhaled. "Something like that is probably where these came from, an alternate universe where either this Harry's tales of mayhem-"

Judith interjected "And sex."

Harry continued, ignoring Judith "Mayhem, action and death actually happened or maybe it was just some fiction this JK person came up with. But whatever's happening it's leaking into our reality."

"So we should talk with the bookseller first, get any information, this might not focus on you." Ioan said without malice as he tapped a pen on a piece of paper thinking. "I never came across anything like this when I was researching my papers and essay. What sort of thing could be leaking this stuff out?"

Harry shrugged. "Time holes, dimensional cracks. I don't really know. I vaguely remember something about Shakespeare and witches."

"Brushing up on the classics Harry, not just indulging in your alter-autobiography?" Judith asked.

"Not something I want to read again too soon. But no, I was in the TARDIS and the Doctor and Martha were telling me about...something...to do with Shakespeare..." Harry screwed up his face in concentration.

"You usually have pretty good recall." Ioan watched him. "To do with the Doctor and everything. When was this?"

"After" Harry paused, closing his eyes, his hand unconsciously going to some of the scars he incurred on that night. "When Cedirc died, the Tri-Wizard and all of that, I was more out of it than any of our encounters. It was just nice to have them talking, calming and everything and I didn't take it all in." Harry shook his head, opening his eyes wide, suddenly realising what he was doing; his arms dropping to his side.

-/

Harry was thankful of the extra space in the back of the new Defender for all the energy detection gear and the other stuff they'd brought along as a 'just in case', which was an assortment of weapons and other defensive equipment.

From what he'd been able to figure the affected area was bounded by the train line near where the bookshop was, Blackfriars Bridge and Cannon Street Bridge, where also a lot of trains crossed over. They'd decided on him doing the majority of the scanning work as neither Ioan nor Judith fancied driving endlessly around in the Defender doing the scanning, so he'd tasked them searching, interviewing and/or coercing information out of anyone who had knowledge of the stuff _like_ the books that featured him so most prominently.

Judith had already called to say the bookshop owner had said he'd sold a huge amount of the books "that just turned up in a loading dock near the Tate Modern" and that a "friend of his in the gift shop directed them his way".

Harry wondered to himself as he sat at the back of the Defender with a laptop hooked into the energy scanner whether it was the train line and the river was somehow keeping it at bay, as though there was a resonance of structures.

"Resonance of structures..." Harry repeated to himself out loud and bit his lip in casual thought as that phrase triggered a vague memory. Pity it was a random memory tinged with a drug addled-like feel that came from the aftermath of his encounter with the rebirth of Voldemort. Mixed liberally with the realisation he was within the Doctor's TARDIS for the first time.

The data that he had coming through was a mess, grabbing a clipboard that Judith had been using to plot all the instances of "stuff" (the technical term she assured him) that had turned up, it was everywhere; books, magazines being sold in small take away joint (with such titles as _Fascist Dictator Monthly) _and newspapers for the New British Republic used to wrap fish and chips. All textual things, which was very likely important, though he wasn't quite sure how.

Using a pencil he added extra data points that he could make some sense of, to the map, looking between his paper map and the data on the laptop's screen.

There were points where he had picked up more incidents of "stuff" around here, locations where there was a greater instance of "stuff" appearing. The bookshop was actually the outlier in all of this, it had purchased books from another location and taken it to away, so it couldn't necessarily be included within the scope of all of this.

Chewing the end of the pencil he reveled, as he caught himself in thought, he _wasn't_ being shot at, spells _weren't_ being fired in his direction, he looked around the streets for a moment Daleks _were not_ trundling down the streets bent on exterminating him. His work actually involved none of those sorts of things, just looking at stuff to see patterns and...

"Patterns..." Harry said aloud to himself, he'd long stopped being bothered by the fact he often talked to himself.

Patterns were something that people tended to see everywhere (so said the Doctor, except he said humans, and then added that he also saw them some of the time), but this was more than a pattern it was a big glaring X marks the spot.

Sort of. Nearly. Almost.

"You know that this isn't the real Globe Theatre Harry." Judith said in the same tone as she'd used to tell him where he had parked _wasn't_ a parking spot.

Unless the parking officials were wizards it wouldn't matter. "I know. From everything we've discovered it looks like whatever it is, is focused here."

"On a re-creation of the Globe Theatre, the real site is down the road, at least that's what the plaque says."

"Just grab the energy reflectors, the scanning equipment and the anti-tank rocket." Harry commented as he grabbed the large battery packs and bag of potion ingredients and other random things he'd thrown into the Defender before he'd left.

"How'd you get in here? The official was muttering to himself." Ioan said to them. Harry just looked at Ioan. "Oh."

"Harry Potter and his amazing mesmeric skills."

"Something I had practiced when I was in the past." Harry said looking around and immediately felt a chill pass down his spine.

"_In certain circumstances there are people predisposed to dimensional instability._"_ The Doctor's face darkened as he leaned forward, his hands on the handle of his question mark-shaped umbrella handle. "Sometimes there's a feeling, a sensation, other times it's a literal perception of the blurring of realities." He looked to Harry, wood around them was dark, Hermione was some ways away near the tent. "It's often a result of flitting between the timelines, or contact with certain unique space time events."_

"_Like the TARDIS?"_

"_Sometimes, sometimes it is merely the time and death's way of balancing the scales, allowing unique individuals to move between where others may not step."_

"_You talk about them as though they're people."_

"_Perhaps not people, but forces to be reckoned with."_

"Did anyone feel a sensation?" Harry said aloud.

"Sort of chilling tingling sensation down the back?" Judith asked curiously.

Harry turned around looking at her carefully. "Yes."

"No, didn't feel a thing, it is a bit parky out though." Harry returned to staring at the ceiling which as he stared at it turned red, the air swirling around, and then, it stopped.

Harry turned around again and looked to his two associates. "You saw _that_ right?"

Ioan and Judith nodded.

"Good to see this wasn't just about bolstering Harry's auto-literature fascination." Judith said as she walked forward dropping the cases she was holding, Harry cringed, one of the larger ones contained the ATR.

"I'll unpack the reflectors, can you have a look around the edges of the theatre?" Harry asked Ioan who had just removed his wand from an internal pocket of his jacket.

Harry squatted down to release the clamps on the two cases, inside were essentially large pick-ups for the energy scanning equipment, he'd spent some time extrapolating outwards and improving on the original designs he'd obtained from Sarah Jane Smith and K-9 and incorporating some things he'd learnt ironically in the '70s. But from advanced technology that UNIT had in its keep. The reflectors were two large tripods that had mounted two sets of dish-like apparatus that would focus the energy to a central point so they could capture more detailed information. In theory they could also project energy along certain wave lengths, but aside from one experiment where he'd accidentally crippled it by firing a _stupefy_ at it he hadn't really tried anything special.

"_Love's Labour's Won_." Harry looked over, Judith had in her hands an ornately bound book.

"What?"

Judith held up the book, waving it at him. "Another book to add to your collection of stuff that doesn't exist."

"_Love's Labour's Won _existed, Shakespeare wrote it..." Harry said trailed off as he plugged in the cables to the reflectors and connected the laptop and smiled as everything lit up green. Then he frowned in thought.

"Martha said something about that…" He said again trailing off as he thought to himself. It was like the memory was fuzzy, additionally so, like...

"_It's weird, I read a book, while back, about Harry Potter, it's weird, must be a coincidence." _

_Harry blinked, his body awash with a variety of pain killers and other things the Doctor had provided to do what the Doctor did, make things better._

"This doesn't look like a _Shakespearean_ play Harry."

"How so?" Harry asked curiously as he looked around the spot the book had arrived, there were no burn marks, nothing was rumbling, it was still a wooden floor the sky above them a powdery grey of overcast clouds.

Judith opened up a page and began to read. "_Onto a point in space betwixt Dravidian Shores Linear 5930167.02 and stikes the fulsome grove of rexel 4 co-radiating crystal activate_." Then Harry heard it, in fact they both probably heard it, it was the sound of the time vortex, even though he'd heard it only a few scarce times it was still etched in his mind as a noise unlike anything, above them a cloud, or maybe a tunnel or something, he stumbled for words something seemed to wish to claw out of the space.

"_Stupefy!_" Came Ioan's voice, the spell, splashing across the cloud...portal thing and then they were suddenly once more bathed in the grey sky of inner London.

"Suddenly the walls are all thrumming with energy and you two are standing enthralled."

"Fascinated Ioan, I was hardly in the _thrall_, not sure about Judith though, maybe she was enchanted." Harry chuckled though it failed to wipe away the shadow of worry on his face. "Did you find anything?"

"Fourteen sides and nothing else not of this world."

"You alright?" Harry asked slightly more gently to Judith.

"So that switches it on, what'd you think turns it off?" She said looking through the book.

"Maybe it's at the back?"

"They'd be stupid to put whatever it was we needed at the back." Harry said as Judith looked through the to back of the book where several pages were blank.

"So it's not too easy." Judith looked at Harry. "But you know something."

Harry slumped slightly and sighed, and walked over to the stage, jumping up and sitting on it. "Martha and the Doctor said something about this, considering things at the time I don't remember everything. But it was something to do with Shakespeare and that play and..." He trailed off before whispering "words_._" With intent.

"Words?" Ioan asked.

"Like wizards use spells as the start of a lot of magic these...I can't remember, they also use words as starting points to their magic. The Doctor said that there was all sorts of magic in the universe, some not as benign as others."

"And guessing by how your Doctor does things he bumped them off and now they're back for revenge?" Judith said.

"He doesn't 'bump people off'" Harry said immediately. "Except the Daleks...and their home planet, and the Cybermen, and the Ice Warriors on occasion and...never mind." Harry glared at Judith who had another self satisfied smile on her face.

Said Judith. "So they're trying to get out of wherever they are."

"And that noise was where they are." Ioan said.

"The time vortex." Harry answered Ioan immediately.

"So what do we do now?" Judith asked.

Harry walked over to the energy reflectors and pondered the information on the laptop's screen. "We can either wait around and see what happens and gather information that way and work out some way to close up their infiltration or we can poke it again with the book and see what happens."

"That sounds like a bad idea, considering we went all _mesmerised_ under it."

Harry looked at the book and thought to himself. "If their power lies in words and the book has words that will open the whatever it is to let them out."

"Then we just need to work out what words to say to close it completely." Ioan said as he took the book from Judith's hands.

"Which doesn't really help, as it's all nonsense." Ioan's tone was somewhat defeated.

"No, we just need to record with the energy detector and turn that into words!" Judith exclaimed.

Ioan and Harry exchanged a look and Harry ended up shrugging. "Looks like we're in it for the long and boring rather than the dangerous and exciting."

_5 hours later..._

It was dark and nothing that out of the ordinary had happened.

"It can't all be exciting death and disaster." Harry said to himself.

"What I want to know is what this has started happening now." Judith said as she walked around the outside edge theatre again.

Harry frowned. "What?"

"Well if these things have been trapped since the 1600s, why now?"

"Assuming they're in the Doctor's TARDIS or in the vortex where time is indeterminate you mean?" Harry asked.

"Whatever, though Judith's right, why now? We're not in the middle of any magical conjugation, there's no astronomical alignment of any significance happening and there hasn't been any major seer events." Ioan said.

Harry turned sharply to look at Ioan. "You pay attention to 'seer events'? I thought you washed your hands of the wizarding world."

"Even more so since you went off to the past" He said with a bitter undertone which had lessened considerably since when Harry had returned and they'd had their long chat about it. "but sometimes it's still interesting to pay attention to, out of curiosity mainly. Some of them do get the jump on certain things, even alien in nature, not that a lot of them realise it."

"Interesting. But you're right." Harry then added. "You're also right about the jumping part, might I mention a certain prophecy that left me facing a psychotic wand waving lunatic-" He was cut off.

"There was a prophecy about you and mad-cow Weasley?" Harry glared at Judith.

"Thanks for bring _her_ up again. But, it is interesting that it should happen here and now, once we're done we should look at the letter again."

"You can," Ioan added. "No doubt its someone in the ministry shoving his wand where it doesn't belong."

"I will have to leave a dead Dalek or something with the minister the next time I see him won't I?" Harry said to Ioan with a smile. "Or maybe that Cybermat that I'm fairly sure it dead, that'd give them all a bit of a surprise and we can see if they'll actually live in that environment."

Then the ceiling caught on fire.

Not exactly, but Harry did panic for a moment and thought he might be having a 'Pudding Lane moment', but then all monitoring equipment started to make noises.

Then another box landed in front of them and the swirling vortex of mesmerising black and redness along with the echoing noise of the non-realms closed once more.

"So is it more of my glorious adventures in the world or more _Fascist Dictator Monthly_."

Judith sniffed. "How Hitler could only be Mr October?" She shook her head. "It's an odd method of escape leaving books around and hoping they permeate the local culture enough to get people here."

"They're aliens, they do alien things, they're alien." Ioan said as he opened the box while Harry started the labourious task of collating the information, and writing something up.

"_Doctor Who Discovers Historical Mysteries_." Ioan's amused and startled exclamation broke Harry's concentration and made him walk over to look.

"Oh..." Harry shook his head. "These actually exist, I think."

"You know? Harry what don't you know about the Doctor?" Judith exclaimed.

"Plenty." He said fixing her with a stare, she just glared back with a smile of a killer. "He did this in the 70s...or was it the 80s?" Harry shrugged. "It's meant to be 'The Doctor, Who Discovers...' but the publishing house messed it up."

"You think it's meant to lure the Doctor in?" Judith asked as she flipped through it.

"I didn't really think anything, but that's a good idea." Harry said in reply to Judith. "Though textually speaking it's still odd."

Judith looked at him oddly. "Did you just say sex-"

"Text, please Judith what would even make you think-" Harry just stopped and shook his head.

"Well in those books you do seem to put it around a bit, while having all those fun adventures and everything."

Harry just shook his head and walked back to the laptop he had set up. "Fiction Judith, a fictional me created by that JK person." Harry called out as he sat back down in front of the laptop as the data continued to collate and the aftermath of the energy petered out into the background noise. "You can get that stuff moved out to the Defender, last thing we need is copies of those turning up somewhere."

"And bringing the Doctor here you mean?" Ioan asked as he picked up the box.

"That would be..." Harry trailed off as he started to type away at the screen.

"Interesting, worrying, concerning?" Judith tried as she sat down opposite him.

"All of the above probably. We'll see him soon enough I'd wager."

"What do you know Harry about the future?"

"Plenty." Harry answered slightly distractedly. Both Ioan and Judith knew he knew some things about the future which was very quickly approaching, next year in fact was when things really would start changing, small things, a certain blonde woman would encounter the Autons and a strange man in a blue box. Harry'd promised he's explain all closer to the date, there was still possible danger to the timeline letting too many people know of the impending future, especially big things like that and what was to come. His and the Doctor's timelines were interwoven, but now even more so as his present, the Doctor's relative present, though from Harry's perspective the Doctor's past were about to collide, continuously as time passed for Harry at a 1:1 rate and the Doctor interjected into the timeline with more frequency. Which was totally unlike his co-temperous experience in the 1970s with the Doctor, something he'd explained to Hermione, Ioan and Judith on separate occasions.

Leaning back as the data finished doing its dance he wondered aloud "How am I going to make this sound like anything?"

"That's why you get paid the big bucks." Said Judith, whom Harry had forgotten had sat down opposite him while he was pondering the complexities of knowing a time traveller who, on occasion did make co-temperous visits to the relative present.

-/

Harry had to say he was immensely thankful to the designers of Shakespeare's Globe that, while they had replicated what the Globe Theatre had been like, they also had to adhere to modern occupational health and safety requirements, so while the thatch roof was real thatch, it had been backed up by a modern roof and fire sprinklers. Because, while their (Judith and Ioan said it was _his)_ solution did seal up whatever rift it was, at least he hoped it did considering the feedback did make one of the energy deflectors explode sending _a few_ sparks onto the floor and onto papers and parchment that had been disgorged while they'd been reading out the worse than random wordage that he'd set them to say. It hadn't been a _**big**_fire, just one that had required a _little _bit of clearing up and a _small_ amount of memory modification, so the manager on site didn't call the police...or the fire brigade.

It was all fine now though. Now he could relax for a bit, check his email, his post, catch up on a few things.

The most intriguing thing for today came via his mail redirection service, his somewhat costly but oh so worth it service which prevented all owls reaching him or being tracked to him.

The letter that held his interest today though, _hadn't_ been hand written though quite clearly had been from the wizarding world, the paper was the same quality as the paper in books and maybe some very high quality parchment. But his name on the envelope and the letter within had been _printed_ with relatively simple and therefore untraceable ink.

_Meet me at the Dog and Duchess, Midday._

It ended with the day after tomorrow's date.

There was no explanation, nothing that would point to who it was.

Harry smiled at the piece of paper, its mystery intrigued him, though there was the slighted possibility that it was a trap to kill him or something like that. That's what made him continue to smile. Of course, there was always the possibility it was just some boring ministry type.

-/

He'd left a message with Ioan's wife Akilina, as Ioan was out under his instructions to get a full medical work up, just in case.

While there wasn't anything too major that he knew of, next year with 2005 was when things would start anew.

Judith was off investigating any 'alignments' in a similar vein that Ioan had mentioned, but through her own 'contacts' concerning Shakespeare's Globe. He and Judith would go and visit the ministry later in the week, once they'd had a chance to go back to Shakespeare's Globe and take another set of readings, just to make sure everything had settled down.

Interestingly there was only one _Dog and the Duchess_ in England, in the outskirts of Hampshire.

Getting out of the Defender, which he'd driven, rather than his Jag or McLaren because he could fit more stuff in, including a body, should there be a need.

But also a few weapons, energy scanners and handful of potions.

Buttoning up his _Kevlar lined_ jacket, which also neatly concealed the holstered gun he locked the Land Rover and walked in.

It was a mostly empty pub much like several he'd frequented across the country and across two different periods of history. It was something that didn't tend to change much, just the prices and what was on TV.

Except this pub didn't have a TV.

Ordering a sparkling water, something he generally wouldn't do in a pub, but if someone was going to try and kill him he wanted to be level headed, plus he could throw the bottle at his attacker or attackers...or maybe even assassin or assassins Harry thought to himself with a chuckle.

Giving the bar another once over and finding no one who was going to jump him he, in fact, there were hardly any patrons in here and those that were, were giving him the 'country glare' given to outsiders who dropped into the local establishment.

Locating a table near a wall at the back where he could keep an eye on the rest of the pub without being seen he relaxed slightly.

Then a few minutes later as he was taking a sip of the sparkling water several things happened in quick succession; the grandfather clock started chiming midday, it was something he hadn't realised was in the pub, but its ringing meant it was either a clock or someone's ringtone. Someone sat down opposite him, but whomever they were they were under an invisibility cloak, who had probably used the clock's chime to mask their approach, and were it not for the ripple in the cloak's fabric he mightn't have seen it in the dim light of the pub. But as the chair took the person's weight Harry had removed the gun from his secluded holster and was pointing it at where he guessed was the person's, very likely a witch or wizard's chest.

"You might as well uncloak." Harry said calmly, not lowering the weapon. He wasn't really sure what made him grab the gun rather than his wand.

The wizarding way of death had been on his mind recently, and where or how to find wizards who had died; their graves, more specifically. Aside from Dumbledore's, his parents and **the** graveyard he didn't know. It was, it was Cedric's he wanted to visit, he wasn't sure what he wanted to do, or say, or anything, just...just reading that truly weird version of his life by that JK person.

That and other things...

"What's that Potter?" Said a voice who wasn't a wizard's voice, unless they were using a polyjuice potion and it wasn't the voice of an assassin, or not a dedicated assassin, he wasn't really sure what the voice and the body, a downright sexy body if he was at all honest with himself did.

"It's a gun." Harry said as the woman with the sexy body pulled the cloak off and stuffed it into a small purse.

"A gun?" She asked curiously looking at him.

"Fires a projectile at great speed out of this barrel, like a small cannon. It's used to kill people, among other things."

"Like a flintlock?" She asked studying his face rather than the weapon.

"If you like." Harry said and then added. "So Ms Greengrass, what are you doing here?"

Then a waiter brought over a glass of something and placed it down on the table in front of her. Harry noted two things, firstly he didn't realise there were any waiters here and two he didn't pay any attention to the fact he was pointing a gun at the lady whom he'd served a drink.

"So what is the dangerous Mr Potter drinking?" She asked taking a sip of her drink leaning back into the chair and removing her wand. Harry raised an his weapon. "A simple privacy spell Potter."

"Fine I'll wait for the privacy spell." Harry said. "And sparkling water, to answer your question."

"Water?" Came her surprised answer.

"The message did leave something open to interpretation Ms Greengrass." Harry said and then added "Daphne." She looked at him but didn't say anything to counter what he'd said.

"Your arm must be getting rather tired Potter, I've been shooting with my father. Such fascinating things, but rather cumbersome compared to a wand."

"I'm still trying to decide if you're here to kill me Daphne."

"Kill you?" She seemed genuinely surprised.

"High grade paper used in several books, basic ink available anywhere, printed rather than written type in the letter, making it all very hard to trace."

She smiled. "My father has a printing press, I find it interesting to use, such communiqués between associates should be kept as anonymous as possible I have found."

Harry slipped the weapon back into his holster and poured himself more of the water.

Daphne raised an eyebrow. "Does that mean you believe I'm not here to kill you Potter?"

"Perhaps. So, Daphne...?" He said as he took a sip of the water looking at her over the top of the glass as the bubbles popped and shifted on the surface.

He allowed the silence to hang, to force her to answer why she'd sent a mysterious message to him getting him down here to see her.

The silence dragged on though Harry just smiled, watching her. He didn't have anywhere he needed to be, today at least, and Daphne wasn't here to kill or assassinate him, which was a little bit of a disappointment he had to admit. But not all days could be exciting.

Though there was always interesting to fall back on.

"Following our previous engagement I thought we might reconvene for a repeat."

Harry raised an eyebrow and smiled.

"And as I found that you take your privacy in a considered and careful manner, I thought likewise to follow suit." She said in an equally levelly toned voice as her first statement, it was as though they were talking about the weather. Maybe they were.

"Next time-" He was cut off.

"You presume" She started but Harry just continued.

"Next time you may want to put something else, like your name or some other identification. I..." Harry trailed off for a moment. "Lead an interesting life, so I came prepared for an interesting day."

"Proved by the protective clothing you're wearing, the muggle projectile weapon and the knife hidden in your boot, not to mention your wand _not_ in a holster, but equally within reach." She commented casually as she took another sip of her drink.

"Touché."

-/

Daphne looked out the window at Potter's conveyance, it was a somewhat blocky, black vehicle, seemingly of a dedicated purpose, however he had said it was not his only conveyance.

It was interesting the way he had inveigled himself into the muggle way of life, that apparating was not enough for him.

He could easily use magical transportation to conduct whatever the extent of his business was. She had not asked what he needed such conveyance for, nor had he enquired to her daily excursions.

Too many of her associates whom she partook of copulation with wished her to join them for poetry readings, or walks through their estates.

It was a rather unsatisfying way to spend one's day.

She had chosen this place for their engagement because it was a wizard-run establishment, with discreet rooms above. It was not a location she had used in the past for the alleviation of urges with any of her known associates. But it was a location she knew of; her sister had used places like this, both before and after her annulment. The facilities and rooms were almost up to the standard of her own rooms, and that of other wizards of whom she had participated with.

Daphne turned looking over towards the bathroom as she heard the shower turn off, it was where she and...Harry had begun proceedings and despite his leering and suggestive comments she preferred to reflect following their intimate association.

Running her finger over the weapons that Harry had removed and laid on the chair and table there was a cold _mechanised_ quality to the muggle firearm, it functioned for one purpose. He wore it with such casual determination, such ease, it was fascinating, and it did make her _somewhat_ curious as to the reasons why he should need to be armoured in such a fashion.

It was no unknown for wizards to need to be armoured, most people had enemies of some description, and those who did not just didn't know it.

"The safety's on you can pick it up." Came Potter's voice a slightly disconcerting in its proximity, she chastised herself for not noticing.

"I'm good at creeping up on people." He said, but his voice had an odd bitterness to it, as though this was not a skill he valued. It made him all the more a fascinating man.

Daphne turned to look at Harry Potter, who was shirtless and still had wet hair, though he seemed to have rubbed a towel on it, he seemed unable or just unwilling to use charms or spells to do such things like that.

She looked to him once more as he picked up his shirt, he nodded towards the _weapon_ she had her hand on.

Carefully she removed it, it was its weight that surprised her, she had used flintlocks before while hunting and other activities, but they had a sense of _construction_, her father had visited the firm that crafted those pieces, crafted with small details that her father wished on them. But this, this was heavy an all metal construction, it _wasn't_ a piece, that could be appreciate both in its function and form, this was a functional device, though there could be a purity in that also she reflected as she replaced it within its holster.

Daphne could tell that Harry was hesitating about something, as he did up his shirt.

After a few moments he spoke. "Daphne, you know about wizarding culture, more than a person such as myself." He said with in a depreciating manner, yet with a smile.

She watched him and than acknowledged this with an affirmative.

"I well..." Harry sighed, she saw a great sadness pass over his featured as he sat down against his jacket. "I only know where my parents are buried, but...I wanted to visit Cedric's grave, for...I don't know..." Harry said, his shoulders slumping.

Daphne frowned for a moment. "Diggory?"

Harry nodded. "I never, never really, just with everything that went on at the time. I wanted to visit to...I dunno."

It was a side she hadn't seen to Potter, not that it was a side many wizards or witches chose to show, outside of memorials and funerals the dead were remembered for their history. Maybe that was what Harry was remembering. Diggory was the first of the student body to die at Hogwarts. She knew, that it had taken a toll on him, the events at the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

"I'm sure I can find out the information Harry." She said with a smile. He looked at her and smiled a relived smile.

"Thank you."

"Should I send you a letter or" She paused. "Would you like me to come to you?"

He seemed to consider it and then shook his head. "I think-" He paused. "You might not like where I live, my life is less than ordinary Daphne."

"Then...? If you're to turn up to all of our associations armed I think we shall have to review how we meet." Daphne said with a teasing tone.

He seemed to think for the briefest moment. "I'll meet you at midday at Land's End in a week."

"Land's End?" She asked curiously.

"You know it?" He said curiously.

"Near where Lyonesse used to be?" She nodded to herself. "Yes."

"I'll take you for a drive in something more exciting than the Defender." He said jabbing a thumb backwards to the window.

-/

"You look suspiciously cheery Harry Potter." Judith said as paddled the dingy, spring was taking its sweet time to make an appearance, so the tunnel through which they paddled was freezing, shit stinking sewer, thick with water and rats that had died in the filth that could be considered water.

"Do I?" Harry asked curiously as he pushed gingerly against the wall with the oar. Despite being one of the filthiest ways to enter the ministry it was also the most covert.

"I suspected something the other day, but, the professional I am Harry Potter I thought I'd save asking you until-"

Harry interrupted her. "Until we were paddling down a river of storm water and-"

"Shit. Yes." She continued.

_Earlier...the other day..._

"So what did your contacts say about the theatre?" Harry asked Judith as he put his feet up on a pile of _Harry Potter and..._ books that he'd yet to destroy, though the pages were useful as fire lighters and the latter books were to get the fire going, not quite a replacement for logs, but they were useful.

Harry looked over at Judith who was looking at him oddly, just for a moment she was giving him her 'look', which didn't bode well.

"I put the word out to my associates for anything that might be related to your phallocentric brethren."

Harry shook his head. "Do you know, when I was at Hogwarts we didn't really think about that all that much."

"Alternate-Harry seems to have though." She said gesturing his foot rest.

"He's fiction, reality is a far more grim and grimy place." Harry said as he took a sip of his mug of tea.

"So it was just drinks down in the coffee shop, chaste kisses in the broom cupboard and no wanking in the showers."

Harry shook his head. "How did I cope?" He deadpanned. "Maybe it was all the death and Lord acronym wanting me dead." He continued.

"Please, you were a teenager, even certain death wouldn't get in the way of."

Harry stared at Judith as she motioned something obscene at him. "If I didn't know you as well as do and if we hadn't-"

He was cut off by Judith. "Tortured people together?" She offered in a friendly tone.

"Used information retrieval techniques." Harry corrected.

"Of course." Judith said.

"Worked so closely together" Harry continued with the sentence he had started. "as close as we have I would've thrown you out of my house."

"Please, for that you'd just be a bit offended Harry Potter." She made the motion again with an evil smile.

"So, while you're mocking my wand wavering antics what did you find out."

Judith looked as though she was going to say something but didn't.

"Surprising even myself Harry, I struggled."

"No shoot outs, binge drinkers, or unwarranted police raids on squatters in the area?" Harry asked sarcastically, Judith kicked him.

"No all my associates Harry Potter are-"

She was cut off. "Delinquents with ASBOs?"

"I'll remember that the next time you need a shotgun loaded with rock salt in the middle of London." She challenged.

Harry shook his head. "So many blood replenishing potions for those wizards..." He paused. "Who shouldn't have been messing around with a giant leech. And if I remember I thanked you for procuring it."

"From my associates, and had you let me finished Harry Potter, I would have explained further." She passed him a sheet of A2 paper, from where Harry wasn't sure, it wasn't folded and there wasn't a bag or anywhere for Judith to have pulled it from.

Harry looked at the page and frowned for a moment. It was a charcoal sketch, which had been edged with paints. It was rather nice.

"Umm..." Harry said.

"Very touristy down there, when we're not in there, nearly setting fire to a rebuilt building."

"And they say OH&S isn't worth anything."

"Quite clearly the government official who made them install their fire systems had an extra-dimensional alien in mind when they installed all that stuff." Judith deadpanned.

"So we're looking for a group of people who were wearing dark purple robes and," Harry looked hard at the picture. "Green socks."

Judith nodded.

-/

"So, your one night stand then?" Judith continued having somehow established he'd had _sex_. How was another matter that Harry didn't think about as he looked around for the route they needed to take.

Considering going through this way you could essentially get into the ministry without anyone knowing, Harry hoped they hadn't blocked it up. Though knowing the Ministry, even with Shacklebolt in charge, they were still somewhat lax and of the 'if it hasn't fallen to pieces, or even it has and killed someone not too important' don't fix it. Plus any organisation needed at least one way to sneak into their offices. It was even better that this method was one they hadn't made themselves.

"So it's the same woman, the one night stand that's become something more."

"A mutual associate Judith." Harry swore to himself, he should have just stayed quiet and let Judith postulate on his relationship.

"Maybe I'm just happily polishing my wand, maybe that's why I'm happy." Harry said as he pointed the torch down the tunnel and pushed them onwards.

Harry felt the dingy shift from side to side and turned around to see Judith smiling and shaking her head in an exaggerated way, to make the craft shift from side to side.

"You don't call your 'wand' a mutual associate. Not unless you're _really_ lonely."

Harry could hear the air quotes in her voice, the mocking tone also helped.

He breathed out a sigh of relief when he came upon the hole brickwork, which was more a wobbling space, where a something like a notice-me-not spell had been cast, but it seemed to have degraded quite a bit to just this wobbling void.

Conjuring some ropes to secured the dingy and climbed up and waited for Judith.

"'Just walk around as though you own the place.'" Judith repeated what he'd said.

Harry shrugged. "Just don't go shouting 'muggle power'" He said recalling their previous visit together. "and we should be alright."

"So you're looking for this officious guy, Fuller?"

"I doubt he's got any robes or socks in his cupboard, at least none that are remotely interesting." Harry said the lift shuddered and came to the floor they needed.

"But you still want to rifle around in them?" Judith asked turning to him with a smile.

"Yes. Down here I think." Harry said as he consulted a board which was either a map of a piece of modern art that someone had vomited up after a particularly long binge on the firewhiskey.

The room was much like a lot of low paid offices in the ministry; despite magic and the wonders that it could do to the dimensions, it was still little more than a cupboard.

"Out to lunch, hmmm." Harry said to himself as he pushed Judith in.

"Good or bad?" Judith asked as she walked over to the desk, or more to the point shuffled past Harry to get to the desk.

"Bad, I had hoped just to get the information out of him and go." Harry said shoving his hands into his pockets.

"You don't want to go through his files and see what's cooking?"

"Officious, stuck up and a stickler to protocol." Harry said as he walked over to a filing cabinet. "Do you think he's filed it under B for books, L for literature, or T for transgressive?"

Harry closed the door carefully to the Drew Fuller's office, Judith was leaning against the wall outside, waiting for him to finish laying down some instructions on Drew.

"So the mysterious 'he' is just someone who writes officious letters."

"And it is someone who is poking their wand where it shouldn't belong." Harry mused as he rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. Judith looked up and down the corridor cautiously.

"The ministry does like the play two sides of the same coin, and also keep other dragon-shit crazy people in reserve just in case..." Harry trailed off.

"Time to leave?" Judith said, and then added. "You've just thought of something?"

"Yes." Harry admitted as a bell that sounded rather like a fire alarm started ringing. "On both counts."

"You're thinking about that stuff in San Francisco that you and Hermione investigated, wrapped up with the Doctor again." Judith said to his back as they paddled away from the ministry.

Harry wanted to say he was thinking about whether the alarms had been for them or something else. "I don't just think, sometimes I muse." Harry paused to push them away from the sides of the sewer tunnel as there was something of a tide beneath them.

"The ministry does like to watch their pies closely, even if they don't want to know what fillings they have." Harry mused to himself and shook his head and wondered where he got that phrase from, or maybe it just lost some of its intensity given they were paddling an inflatable dingy through water that wasn't exactly safe to drink, or swim in for that matter.

"And now they're sticking their appendages into things like magic again." Judith mused ominously, though with a slight suggestive tone on _appendage_ which left Harry with a disturbing image in his mind. He cursed, wondering if it was the fault of his imagination or Judith's suggestive tone.

-/

Daphne looked around, she had apparated to the location that Potter...Harry. That Harry Potter had specified, it was a muggle location, though she doubted that many knew of the significance of what lay beneath the waters near here.

Potter had suggested that he would be awaiting her arrival somewhere around this locale. She had made sure to arrive shortly before midday.

It had been a fascinating diversion to locate Cedric Diggory's place of burial, while researching and knowledge for the sake of it was not something she pursued, unlike Potter's muggle associate Granger, this did present some tasks that were of interest. Her mother did suggest merely _requesting_ the information from the Diggory household. But there was no pursuit or challenge in a simple request, though it was interesting that Potter did not follow that path.

However, it was quite likely that Potter did not wish to have direct contact with Diggory household.

The body of Cedric Diggory _wasn't_ located within the locale of Ottery St. Catchpole, though that was where she had initially and wrongly assumed it would be. Her father had chastised her for assuming anything, assuming anything of anyone was arrogant, something her housemates, at Hogwarts had done far too often.

Researching Cedric Diggory's place of rest, also brought back some memories of her time at Hogwarts, it was not a time she had thought about for a few years, once that time had passed, it was a period she had closed. It had not been the most stable of institutions and educations, but she had learnt far more she reasoned than many of her housemates and those in other houses. She had also completed her education at Hogwarts, something Harry Potter and the Ronald Weasley failed to do, though from what she had heard whilst pursuing other matters within the Ministry Weasley, it seemed was perusing some specialised Auror activities, though that was all she was able to gather from her unique vantage point.

As she looked around the general, she saw a rather curious man watching her leaning against a muggle conveyance, he was wearing a scarf and darkened muggle glasses, it was only, as she turned away, turning the image over in her mind that she realised is was Potter, the glasses, something she never imagined Potter to wear, covered his eyes and made his face far more unreadable. Though rather than turn back and approach him straight away she continued to survey the area around her, and then casually walked back to where Potter was leaning against the conveyance.

"Daphne, I thought you'd missed me." He said as she approached.

"Merely taking a turn around here, it's been some time since I ventured down to Land's End, I wanted to see why you chose this locale to meet."

Potter shrugged with a smile. "I rather like it here." He said and continued to smile, but he did remove his glasses, blinking quickly at the sun.

"You're looking rather dashing today I must say." He said with a grin.

She would have considered a comment such as that, had it come from others to be of a more suggestive nature, and although their previous encounters would suggest something different, she couldn't read anything beyond an enthusiastic complement in Potter's words.

She noted, with a slight sense of amusement that Potter tensed, only just as she reached within her jacket, it seemed to be an unconscious move on Potter's part and he relaxed just as quickly as he tensed, seemingly realising what he was doing. It suggested many things of Potter's life.

"This I think you will find is everything you need." She said handing over the tightly bound scroll, sealed with _neutral_ wax that she used for many professional communications which she did not wish to be tracked, charmed or spelled to reveal anything.

Potter did not open it, she noted with a slight arch of her eyebrow.

"I trust you Daphne, and thank you." He said, slipping it within a pocket of his own jacket and stepping away from his conveyance. "Now, would you like to come for a bit of a drive?"

As Potter stepped away from his conveyance, allowing Daphne to look at it in its entirety she noted it looked far less like anything she had seen muggles within when she had been present around them, and it also looked totally different design from Potter's 'Defender', this deep green conveyance had sleek smooth lines, a long front leading up to a glass window at the front and the curves and sleekness continued around to the back.

Its design suggested speed and smoothness and communicated this in such a way that was far clearer than the fastest broom, which remained a similar design, despite their speed, but this, this was far more different and more suggestive of its speed and sleek manner.

"This isn't like the other muggles have." She said as she looked at it.

Potter smiled at her, or at her question, she wasn't quite sure. The only rather public display of a fascination with muggle technology like this had been the muggle-loving Weasley man, that conveyance Potter had had first hand experience.

"No, this is from the 1970s." He said in an interesting tone, it was one that Daphne hadn't heard Potter use, his tone and inflection suggested...something different.

She inclined her head and...Harry slipped forward walking softly on the ground and opened the door for her.

"And these belts are for?" She asked curious as Potter indicated them.

"In case of an accident, muggles don't have momentum arresting spells, these in theory will stop you flying through the windscreen should we need to decelerate quickly." Harry casually said as he belted in his own belt and placed a key within the 'ignition'.

The noise as the conveyance started was unlike hearing the muggle machines outside, it was, in fact far more dampened, yet the connection, the rumble she could feel from the front where the mechanism lay was...rather invigorating.

Daphne revised her opinion slightly as Potter accelerated the 'car'. While playing Quidditch was not her forté, she had ridden a broom in several situations but this speed, with its indication on the dials in front of Potter and the _noise_ was most...interesting.

There was also the calm amusement that Harry seemed to have for it all, his manipulation of the leaver with his left hand the 'gear stick' he'd said when he'd caught her looking around her.

And then he was asking her if there was any where he could take her, seemingly forgetting she had apparated to meet him, or perhaps he didn't care.

It was something of a different experience, none of her associates did anything of the kind, while some travelled by carriage or other means it was not a casual or simple method to use for travel. Apparating or utilising the floo network was far more of a uncomplicated method of travel. There was the _Knight Bus,_ but that could hardly compare to this, that was merely a more directed _train_, utilised by those who could not access more civilised transportation.

Looking out the window she watched the country side flash past, it was unlike travelling by train, or by broom, this was so very much lower to the ground, the surface of the road felt very close indeed.

Then Harry said she could open the window. The air rushed in, it was shocking and exhilarating at first, and then, more surprisingly for her, continued to surprise and exhilarate.

Then they were slowing down and Harry stopped the vehicle in an area out looking a small inlet.

"Enjoy it?" Harry asked as he opened the door for her and offered her his hand as she stepped out.

Daphne smiled at him, a genuine smile. It was met by a similar smile from him. Not the lustful gaze that he, and others had for her during pre and post, experiences of relief with associates and one another. This was a smile from a man, who seemed to genuinely enjoy his experiences.

It was something of a change from the controlled expressions many wizards used, even when they were alone, though outside.

She nodded. "Yes, Harry, it was exhilarating." She said, breathing in the salty air. Chastising herself silently for a moment of honest lack of control.

Then he reached forward and kissed her, his dry, though warm lips on hers, she wasn't sure how long their kiss lasted for before they stepped apart and then they were both looking out to sea.

"Shall we meet again Potter?"

"Not just a meet for sex you mean Daphne?"

She turned to him. "Yes, Harry."

Potter. _Harry_, turned and smiled at her.

Harry looked at the space where Daphne had been standing, her good bye kiss, still on his lips, she had apparated with barely any space between them and a sly look in her eye as she had done so.

Crossing his arms he felt the roll of parchment in his pocket and smiled sadly to himself.

-/

Harry walked through the graveyard, it was, much like graveyards were, quiet. The path, as indicated by the map Daphne had helpfully provided was a long path, away from the other graves, taking him deeper into the lands where the graveyard resided.

He passed a few graves on his walk, no tombs though. He wasn't sure if it was just memorable people, people like Dumbledore had tombs or if others...Harry shook his head and checked his map once more as he reached a fork in the path. There were no signs, the path was well maintained, though it didn't look like anyone had walked it in some time.

And then he was standing before it.

_Cedric Diggory_

_24th June 1995_

Harry laid the single white rose down in front of the grave and then resumed standing.

He wasn't really sure, why, why he'd come here, not really.

But he felt, he wanted to, needed to.

Now he was here.

"I will always remember you Cedric." Harry said aloud, looking at the grave once more before walking slowly back along the path.

-/

A/N:

_This chapter just kept getting longer and longer. Initially it was just going to be a super-short chapter about Harry and Hermione and maybe some Daphne-Harry stuff. _

_Much of the alt-Harry Potter (the alt-universe books) comes from a conversation I had with a reviewer (I read and usually respond to all reviews). It stems from 'Harry Potter' being mentioned by Martha Jones in **The Shakespeare Code**, somehow I forgot this when I wrote Harry meeting the Doctor and Martha. I could have just ignored it, or thought of it as something that was eaten up by the Reapers or the Crack in time or something like that. But it kicked off some ideas in my head. _

_There are twelve because Harry Potter is referenced elsewhere in Doctor Who, and it's stated in a novel that there are 12 books, hence, 12 appear here. The author is just called JK because the Doctor says in The Shakespeare Code "good ole JK". The book titles are never named within Doctor Who, so I've just created them._

_Here is the list of all the alt-Harry Potter books' titles: Book 1: Harry Potter and the Dark Awakening. Book 2: Harry Potter and the Serpent's Dream. Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner's Dilemma. Book 4: Harry Potter and the Trials of Wizardry. Book 5: Harry Potter and the Journey of Order. Book 6: Harry Potter and the Death of a Hero. Book 7: Harry Potter and the Discoveries of the Past. Book 8: Harry Potter and the Family's Lament. Book 9: Harry Potter and the Foretold Discovery. Book 10: Harry Potter and the Awakening of Night. Book 11: Harry Potter and the Night of Revelation. Book 12: Harry Potter and Darkness' End._


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30**

Harry drove up the long driveway towards the house, somewhat nervous, despite having seen the person he was visiting merely a few months ago. Though it had been about 40 years for the man who he'd received a letter from earlier that week.

_Harry Potter,_

_The last time I met the Doctor he "reliably" informed me now would be a good time to contact you, without mucking up the timeline. _

_Us old soldiers get together every so often, I've been following your exploits through the years Mr Potter. _

_If the Doctor's not informed you of my location, I am sure you can locate me._

_Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart_

Harry looked up at the house as he got out of the Jag. The Brigadier's letter had been short, and written as one did, in case it was intercepted or maybe read by someone, though the Brigadier obviously wasn't worried about whomever it was who might read his letter knowing his name.

The door opened before he had a chance to knock.

"Harry Potter." Said a man's voice which hadn't changed since he'd last heard it.

"Brigadier, so you knew it was me?" He said intoning the Doctor's many timbres of voice. It elicited a great laugh from the Brigadier.

"Come in Mr Potter, Doris has already got the kettle on."

"Ah, just what I need Brigadier, a good mug of hot army tea."

The Brigadier laughed again. "Don't let Doris hear you compare _her_ tea making skills to that of the _army_."

Harry grinned. "Sorry, Brigadier. _UNIT_ tea then." Harry said as he greeted the Brigadier with a hand shake and then pulled him into a hug.

"Really Harry..." He chuckled as he pulled him inside.

Doris had left himself and the Brigadier to talk, 'old soldiers' as they were.

"She knows about me then?" Harry asked, they were sitting out the back of "Alistair's" house. It was odd, it call him 'Alistair', he was the Brigadier to his mind. It was how he'd known him for more than a year, known him in command, in UNIT in his present. Now here they were together in both their own time, catching up like old friends. Old soldiers even. He didn't seem old, he was the same, even if some years had passed for one of them. Harry didn't want to make anything of the time that had passed between them, not directly, it seemed...rude some how, that the Brigadier was here, had been here, knowing, when he'd been in the past, in the 1970s, when it was the Brigadier's present...

Sometimes time travel just made him want sit in the pub and have a pint.

"Yes..." The Brigadier trailed off for a moment. "The Doctor told me not to interfere with you, and your 'timeline'." The Brigadier said with a heavy tone and a slump of the shoulders. Harry looked over at the man whom he'd come to know quite well.

"But?" Harry asked.

"But I visited your street, where you lived with those blasted relatives of yours. Just to..." He shifted again looking out into the garden, slightly uncomfortable with admitting it. "Just to make sure they weren't _abusing_ you." He ground out the last two words with great anger.

Harry smiled, grinned and for a moment didn't know what to say, and then just reached over and patted the Brigadier on the shoulder. "Thank you."

"Then a few years ago those damn _Death Eaters_ all over the country. _Your_ war." He looked over at him. "I thought that was the end of them, when you left, with the Doctor, I thought those years, between the invasions and idiotic governments interfering, I saw things that will live with me-" He shook his head taking a mouthful of tea.

Harry remained silent for a long time, he didn't know what to say.

"But you got him, that bastard Voldemort?" Alistair said breaking the silence.

Harry nodded. "Yes Brigadier, I got him. Through everything I got him, and I'm here to live and love another day."

"And the Doctor?"

"He continues to live another day as well, and you know, he helped me along the way, hopefully he'll continue to drop in on me." Harry paused and smiled to himself. "Or I'll have to drop in on him."

"Got yourself a time machine eh?" The Brigadier grinned at him.

"Something better than that, I know the Doctor's future, better than he knows it himself."

"You shouldn't be too smart, a couple of the last ones I met knew what was going on."

"Which ones were that?" Harry asked curiously. "That stuff with Bambera, Ancelyn and Morgaine? Or...?"

"That one! No, but he's mentioned that then?"

"The Doctor tells me a lot of things Brigadier." Harry responded carefully. He was still annoyed that he couldn't remember all that the Doctor had said when he'd been wounded/semi-conscious in the TARDIS, maybe he could have got that stuff in Shakespeare's Globe resolved quicker.

"No, I've met a few, one in the most horrendous jacket." The Brigadier shook his head.

"Oh I've met him," Harry said as he put down his mug. "I didn't think the coat was _that_ bad.

"But that Doctor Smythe woman seemed to keep him in place."

Harry frowned, he'd not heard the Doctor, in that incarnation mention a Doctor Smythe. "That must have been after he'd met me."

"What?" He looked at Harry slightly worried.

"This Smythe woman, he must have met her after he'd visited me."

"Ah, Evelyn was a lovely woman, perfect sort of lady to keep the Doctor in check."

"Evelyn..." Harry trailed off. The name rang a bell, but he was sure it the incarnation of the Doctor who had visited in the woods, when he and Hermione had been hunting the horcuxes. Though the Doctor was very retrospective at that time, sombre would be the word.

"He attracts trouble, whenever he turns up, whenever we meet, whenever he comes to see me. Trouble follows."

Harry smiled. "You know, Brigadier, the majority of the time he visits me, nothing is going on. He, well, Jo took me shopping one time, we went to a museum, he saw the Master..." Harry shook his head. "Other times he met, we had a drink, we have a walk around sometimes, we always talk, he's rescued me on occasion." Harry looked out into the grounds. "But trouble...not really. Maybe..." Harry trailed off and looked over at the Brigadier. "Maybe _you're _the one who attracts trouble Brigadier and the Doctor just comes along to help _you_ out."

The earned him a bark of laughter from the Brigadier. "That is something the Doctor would never suggest Harry. He _likes_ to be the centre of attention, to suggest otherwise would-"

Harry cut him off. "Get him all in a tizzy. I know."

"I don't think the Doctor would ever describe it a 'tizzy' Harry old chap."

"I don't know Brigadier, the Doctor got annoyed when some of his spare parts weren't in from the UNIT stores, or the Doctor with the coat he's a bit 'bombastic', or- the excitable one who dealt with the Ice Warriors in '97, or-" The Brigadier waved a hand at him.

"Yes, Harry, yes. Perhaps the Doctor does like to get himself worked up over things."

"Worked up is one way to describe things. When Jo found out I had an association with the Master she became somewhat 'worked up', to put it lightly."

"Jo did have a tendency to over react back then." Alistair admitted.

"I'm pleased that you're over my association with the Master, not that I've ever really called him _that_."

"Who you are friends with Harry is your business, you're more mature and knowledgeable then men twice your age."

"Excluding yourself of course Brigadier." Harry commented with a smirk.

"Of course Harry." The Brigadier said as though it were an excepted fact.

Harry left _much_ later into the night after 'accepting' an offer of dinner from Doris, which was more she said stay and the Brig said nothing, he was only allowed to leave after promising to continue to stay in touch.

"Us old soldiers need to stick together Harry old chap."

-/

The next day, no where near Harry, Hermione came face to face with something she had only heard described to her, the image of 'evil' and terror, immortalised, and as fresh as it could be considering the circumstances.

Setting up the required preservation barriers, and then alerting wards, followed by security wards she alerted her supervisor she'd found something 'worrisome' and the facility went into lockdown as she made a phone call, it'd be easier than getting in contact by other means, plus she wanted to finish going through that portion of the facility, she had an essay that she needed to write tomorrow and the university library had gotten in several old volumes that she'd been waiting for that she wanted to read. Not for any particular class, but there was always something new to discover about something old.

The back of the Defender was crammed with weapons, energy detection equipment and even more stuff 'expanding bags' which he'd playing with to get a bag that had an extension charm on it as well as being able to expand to envelope something large, just in case they needed to take something, or several somethings away with them.

He'd also been flirting with the idea of putting a shipping container or something like it inside so they could haul around more equipment, without, actually hauling around a container.

He and Ioan had been playing with the idea, but they couldn't seem the just stretch it out by hand, the charmed bags just didn't seem to want to take the load like that.

But they would continue to work on it, it was a challenge they both found fascinating and that Judith didn't.

"So this is a secrete bunker that the your penis waving people have hidden stuff in."

"From my description of the archaeological storage facility you get 'cock waving' and store stuff in." Harry said as he turned down a dirt track as indicated by Ioan who was looking at a roughly drawn map that Harry had sketched out from Hermione's description.

"I said penis, not _cock_ Harry, please give me some respect." Judith corrected matter-of-factly.

"Yes, Judith, because you'd never mock us wand waving people _ever_." Ioan called towards the back seat.

"Not you two, just the other ones who like to wave it would like they're holding a tea cup."

"He was a little bit camp Harry." Ioan said. He was referring to the mad-ish bloke they'd had to deal with who'd managed to get a hold of a Cybermat, probably from the sewers and had been keeping it as a pet, he'd only been discovered because it had been getting into his neighbour's wiring and sucking down all the power...and electrocuting anyone who got near it. The mad bloke 'liked' the shocks he'd been getting off his 'silver slug'.

"Fine, I'll accept that observation." Harry said after a moment.

"What does this squiggle mean?" Ioan asked, not for the first time.

Harry slowed down, why Ioan couldn't have driven and Harry could have read his own map he didn't know.

"That's an arrow, means I was waiting for Hermione to give me more info." Harry looked at the map again. "Straight ahead I think."

"And some of your _wand_ waving fellows have hidden a secret facility in the middle of nowhere."

"Hardly the middle of no where." Ioan scoffed. Despite their needing to trudge along a beaten track they weren't too far away from civilisation, the track had evidence of use from green laning.

"Turn left here." Ioan said looking down at the map and waving with his other hand.

Up ahead there was, surprisingly, more woodland, and a house that looked like it had been firebombed several years ago.

"This is it." Harry said pulling up in front of it, turning off the engine.

Then two people walked out of the ruin, both of whom Harry recognised, considering they were his best friends, and shagging one another.

"Not right at this moment, obviously." Judith muttered by his side.

Harry stared at her shoulder, but she continued to look straight ahead, even though she was doing that he still imagined she was smirking at him.

"Mr Potter."

"Ms Granger, Mr Weasley." Harry said as he dropped his hands out of his pockets, patting his thigh to make sure of the weapon that was still present there. "I wasn't aware you were going to be meeting me here."

"My supervisor is setting preservation charms around the facility, given the likelihood of it being _non-terrestrial _he thought I should meet you."

"Throw the young ones into the firing line first, so they can take the most fire." Ioan commented from behind them.

Ron was trying very hard to keep a neutral expression on his face but his eyes kept going to Harry, trying _not_ to make eye contact with him.

"Well, let's see what's got you so worried." Harry said accepting a bag from Ioan.

"No mutant inside." Harry said as he and Ioan disabled the security wards around it.

"Should there have been?" Hermione asked, her worry breaking through the professional mask she had had in place since they'd been in the facility, which was darker and larger than its exterior would suggest.

Harry made an indeterminate noise and removed a swab from his bag and dragged it along the casing.

Ron watched Harry and his 'associates' walk around the 'thing'. It was "non-terrestrial" he knew what that meant and what it meant for Harry to be here and this is what Ginny was so worried about.

A thing with blue dots all over it, and on one half a sink plunger and something else on it, and some sort of eye...or something. Even without the beginnings of the training he had received, something, even as it was, here, unalive, it seemed to scream danger at him.

"Are you okay?" Hermione squeezed his arse gently, she'd done it before, but he'd learnt not to jump at a random squeeze.

"Just, weird, seeing Harry, all professional, he didn't even look at me."

"He's doing the professional thing." Hermione blew out a lungful of air. "Probably helps him keep his life in order."

Ron looked to Hermione who had stepped away from easy arse grabbing reach.

"What does that mean?" He asked.

"Just...nothing..." She said, but she seemed like she wanted to say more. It worried him about Harry, how much he was being secretive and what had happened with Ginny, even though he'd said some things, and Hermione had assured him that he had said something...about something. He worried sometimes about the amount of time his girlfriend and Harry spent together, though he'd been assured by both that there was nothing happening, actually Harry had said "we're not shagging, you idiot.".

"How long was it under the sea?" Harry called over breaking their discussion.

Hermione looked slightly surprised at the question from Harry.

"Or where was it found?" Ioan asked.

"Or why were you looking for it?" Judith finished.

"Those are better questions than mine." Harry admitted, and tipped his non-existent hat to them.

"Somewhere near the Strait of Gibraltar, it was found by an independent research ship that had been funded by several wealthy families with ties to the Ministry of that time, prior to the first wizarding war against Voldemort."

"Searching for...?" Judith asked curiously.

Hermione opened her mouth. "I..." and then visibly stopped herself. "I can't say."  
Harry grinned over at his associates. "_Classified_. Who knew the Ministry and 'Wealthy Families' liked secrets?"

Harry walked over to them several minutes later, she had been standing a _safe_ distance back, Ron had left her and was patrolling around, his wand out and a serious expression on his face.

"It's safe, or as safe as one of those can be, no sign of the mutant, but I'll need to do more testing to work out how old it is since you can't tell me." It wasn't said with any malice, but she still felt she needed to apologise.

"I can't say Harry."

Harry waved his hand. "If there's anything I, we understand Hermione it's that secrets make up what we do. We'll get it bagged up and we'll be away from here so you can get back to uncovering secrets or covering up truths, or whatever it is you do here."

"So it's a Dalek." Judith said.

Said Dalek was inside one of the storage areas Harry had been building on his property, which was basically various concrete bunker rooms within one of the barns.

"Very much a dead Dalek."

"So why all the mucking around when we were down in one of the Ministry's secret locations? It was as though you were trying to out-professional your friends." Ioan said as he brought over mugs of tea for all and sat down into one of Harry's chairs propping his feat up on a foot rest made of "Harry Potter and the..." books.

"Because they weren't the only ones there." Harry said, he was standing in front of one of his book shelves in mid-thought.

"You're looking for...?"

"Something that's half on my mind."

"The Doctor's never mentioned the Strait of Girbraltar?" Judith asked as she flipped through _Fascist Dictator Monthly_.

"Not that I remember, he doesn't tell me about _everything_ he gets up to."

"Just the highlights of stuff you might need." Judith said, the statement hanging in the silence for a moment.

Harry turned away from the shelf, leaning against it. "Yes, that has occurred to me Judith. The Doctor has been many things throughout his lives, but I've known him longer than..." Harry paused. "Longer than most people, through all his _lives_, he doesn't know what's coming sometimes, and no one knows it all. But he does like to play his and other people's chances sometimes."

"Fine. Just." Judith started.

"I know." Harry said in a low tone, he felt like he needed some time alone to think, he said as much to his associates.

Later that week Harry was reading through the latest UNIT news bulletin, something they really needed to work on their password protection to be able to pick it up. It wasn't at the 'buffalo' stage yet, but for a secret organisation they really needed to work on the secret portion of it.

"Maybe that's why I exist, and the Doctor, and Torchwood, and whomever else. UNIT can't, didn't, won't do it all." He said to the kitchen sink, he was actually talking to himself, but it made him feel slightly better to think he was talking to an inanimate object, rather than himself. Though, not even wizarding sinks talked, no wizarding furniture talked, _that_ would be weird, fine having garden gnomes that are probably sentient and paintings that you can have a chat with but question whether the oven or the kettle can hold a conversation or muse about the meaning of life _and then_ you're weird.

Ron's response when he'd brought this up. "But it's magic Harry, the paintings are magical!"

Then, as he was musing on his kettle, not about it talking but whether he should make another mug of tea a noise started echoing from the courtyard.

A noise of space and time being pushed apart, by a rather rough sounding time ship.

"Speaking of weird things in small packages." Harry said as he grabbed his wand and walked outside, pausing by the door to grab a gun as well. He wondered how many of his friends did this before going outside. Probably none from Hogwarts, the wand was as much a weapon as the heavy piece of crafted metal and composite materials on his thigh.

Harry wondered whether it was the Doctor or Magister that had decided to pay him a visit, maybe the Doctor had realised he had been talked about in the not exactly positive and decided to show up to defend his name, which wasn't _impossible_, or maybe Magister would...arrive for a reason, share a bottle of good Cognac, not that either of them would turn up with a bottle of anything that wasn't _good_, or it wasn't it would have been given or stolen from a figure from history.

While he was musing a shape was pushing itself into reality and Harry realised he was wrong on both counts of who it might be, it wasn't a Police Box and unless Magister had done something _really_ bad to his TARDIS' engines it probably wasn't his TARDIS either.

As the space-time vessel's shape solidified into being in front of him it came into full form. It was a red double decker bus. The number 22 to Putney Common.

Harry smiled at the woman behind the wheel and waved at her, she grinned back, but seemed a bit puzzled as to where she was.

"'Ello, luvy, this isn't London is it? The old bus is playing up a bit." She said throwing a thumb back at her...conveyance. Harry thought to himself with a bit of a smile.

"I know that smile young man, you've got someone in the sack 'aven't you? He or she the one you do the jiggly with and get the squelchy bits going?"

Yes, Harry thought to himself, this wasn't the Doctor or Magister.

"The name's Iris-"

Harry cut her off. "Iris Wildthyme...transtemporal adventuress extraordinaire."

Her eyes went wide for a moment. "My reputation precedes me."

"The Doctor's mentioned you once or twice." Though when the Doctor had Harry'd never really got a bearing on how the Doctor felt about her.

"The Doctor! You know the dear old Doctor, not that he likes to think of himself as old, going through those regenerations like the clappers. While my body is still very much young and running at full steam." Then she pinched him on the arse. "You've got a firm one don't you luvvy, all that running up and down corridors with _him_."

Harry put aside _how_ she'd managed to pinch him on the arse considering she wasn't near him, well not that near.

"I've never really travelled with the Doctor." He admitted. It wasn't something he'd really thought about, the Doctor had never really offered, and even if he had...he wasn't sure if he'd say yes, there was _so much_ on the Earth...

"Oh sorry..." She said in a brief moment of sincerity, obviously reading something into his face. "Nothin' meant by it chuck. So how do you know the Doctor then, you work with UNIT then? Is it the swinging '70s now or the droll 80s? The bus was a bit unsure with its landing, it's the helmic regulators, fixed with my tights while chasing Morbius across the Death Zone."

Harry filed that away to question about later. "I'm Harry, Harry Potter."

Her eyes went wide and she leaned in and gave him a strong hug, very strong considering her stature. "_You're _Harry, he talks about you whenever we run into one another. I always thought you were a girl." She smelled of cigarettes, and alcohol and something else..._ancient._

"A girl?" Harry asked in a confused tone.

"Well, _he_ does like to get around with the young girls doesn't he? No interest in sexing them up, but he's not what you'd call an equal opportunist when it comes to travelling companions is he chuck?"

"Well..." Harry started, though he'd not really thought about it. He thought there was a mix, from who he'd met there was Ian and Jamie and he'd mentioned Adric at one point and...

"See, I told you." Iris nodded at him.

"Jack makes up for it, he'd shag anything."

Iris' stared at him. "The Doctor travels with someone called _Jack_ who is actually allowed to think about _sex_ in the Doctor's company?"

"Oops, maybe that's in your future, it's certainly in his-" He was cut off and joined by Iris.

"Relatively speaking." They said together and laughed. "You do talk like him Harry old mate."

"Come inside Iris, I was just about to make a cup of tea, or would you like something stronger?"

"Nothing like a good cup of tea, stuck on a godess forsaken rock for the past six months, pirates and wenches, a whole society built around that." She sipped the mug. "Good mug of tea."

"So..." Harry started.

"It was your bog-standard colony ship through a time storm with only certain bits of literature and some alien intervention, a whole society built around pirate lore. They had the worst rum I've ever tasted and no mixers!"

"Okay." Harry said absorbing that. "The Doctor's mentioned things like it on occasion, I think, something like the 'abandon all technology to live a better life'."

"That's the jobby, which one was that."

"Here, on Earth, nuclear reactor in London, dinosaurs, time travel, pretend spaceships."

"That one with UNIT where the Doctor made an excuse to drive around in that car of his."

"Bessie?" Harry asked.

"No, but something _he_ liked, probably built it to get over Jo running off to the Amazon and marrying that Welsh bloke."

"Plenty of interesting stuff in Wales Iris." Harry commented lightly.

"That where your bit of fluff is from, a nice Welsh bloke." She paused and then added. "Or bird."

Harry shook his head. "Nothing like that's in Wales." Except a certain Captain who would like to get into my pants he thought to himself and then regretted thinking that as Iris gave him a knowing smile. Magister and the Doctor had been considerably vague on exactly _how_ telepathic Time Lords were.

"Don't worry luvvy. I'm not rifling around in your head, leave that to others to _probe_ with."

"The Doctor's told me several stories about mind probes, it might be good to put it into practice." Harry said casually.

"Unimaginative, the cultures who resort to mind probes."

"Torture works far better as an information gathering tool." Harry replied without really thinking about it.

"Well..." Iris smiled oddly. "I didn't think a friend of the Doctor's would casually chat about something like that."

"Does it worry you?" Harry asked calmly.

"Not at all luvvy, we all have things we've done, would do in our past, presents and futures."

"It worries me sometimes." He admitted.

"As it should love."

There were several moments of silence before Harry broke it.

"So, Iris, while it's lovely to finally meet you."

"Likewise dearie."

"I'm assuming you didn't just decide to drop in on me out of the blue, the Doctor and Magister generally drop round for reasons, or I them, though they do have something of an open invitation." Harry paused. "Well one of their regenerations anyway...it's complicated."

"Time travel is chuck...the Magister, you mean...him with the beard and the shrinking gun?"

Harry shrugged and nodded.

"You are a surprise, cavorting with _him_ and _him_." Harry interpreted that as Magister and the Doctor.

"So...?"

"I'm on a _**secret**_ mission for MIAOW." She said the last part in an odd way he could only intrepret it as an acronym.

"MIAOW?" He repeated.

"The Ministry for Incursions Aliens and Ontological Wonders."

And there's another organisation, Harry thought to himself.

"So did you come to work for MIAOW in the '70s during an exile on Earth?" Harry joked.

"The 60s luvvy." She corrected without missing a beat. "I still do the occasional job for MIAOW, it makes life interesting and certainly not as tied to the _establishment_ as **he** is with UNIT."

"And it brought you to my courtyard." Harry said curiously.

"Of course not Harry. The bus must have been drawn here by some latent Artron energy lying around here, the Doctor's been for a visit recently?"

"More than 6 months ago." She laughed.

"6 months, that's nothing to a time ship like my bus. She would have homed in on it."

"The Doctor must have landed in thousands of locations around the Earth." Harry felt like adding 'why me?'.

"Maybe the bus just likes your courtyard." Iris replied as though it always happened. Maybe it did, the same with the Doctor, his TARDIS liked certain times, places that were easier to go to or find.

Only Magister really went places for actual reasons, maybe that was part of why the Doctor disliked what Magister did, that he did things with direction and purpose, of course there was the death, destruction and chaos that went along with it, but that was taken as read.

Iris pushed a beer coaster towards him. On it read _Aidensfield Arms._

"Aidensfield Arms." He said turning it over in with his fingers and then rubbed it between his thumb and finger. "Feel like cardboard." He carefully sniffed it. "Smells like cigarettes, beer, gin and cardboard."

"Yes, very droll luvvy, a good impression of the Doctor."

Harry smiled with a sarcastic suggestion which was often an expression thrown at him by Judith. "Well...do I need to break out some testing equipment, is this from the past, present or future? Is the ink genuine, is a time traveller knocking out fake beer coasters and selling them at inflated prices to collectors while supporting two marriages."

"This isn't a 'Goodnight Sweetheart' scenario Harry." She said with a huff grabbing it back off him. "The _Aidensfield Arms _doesn't exist. The whole town of Ashfordly doesn't either."

Harry took a breath to say something and then let it out. "How was I supposed to know whether a pub exists or not, I don't mind the odd pint, but I don't know every pub in Britain."

"Ah," She held up the coaster. "But here thing, this pub does exist, a whole town exists, but it shouldn't but it does and has since the 1970s."

"What?" Harry said even more confused.

Harry had convinced her that going by her bus wasn't the way to travel there. Mostly because the Doctor hadn't exactly talked up Iris' piloting skills, or her bus. Supposedly it was far, far, far older than the Doctor's TARDIS, "rubbish tip" and "found" were two words the Doctor had used to describe how Iris had come upon her ship. Though there was something to be said for that, restoring an antique and all, but like the Doctor Iris seemed to hold her ship together from adventure to near death experience to space station-pub.

"You're like him then, you like your _cars_ and _gadgets."_

"I spent some time in the '70s with the Doctor and UNIT." Harry said as he changed gear to overtake a lorry.

"Oh so you've met _that_ one." Harry nodded, he'd met a lot of them, maybe even as many as Iris, probably more.

"Well I've _had_ a few of them, some I can't stand, but they all love their Aunty Iris."

"I can most definitely say Iris I've not _had_ any of the Doctors." Harry said with a chuckle.

Iris laughed with him. "You're got some girl that gets your wood hard and your wand slippery."

"You have a wonderful turn of phrase Iris." Harry paused. "And you know about magic."

"Chuck, I know more about magic than your Doctor does about wine."

"Depends which Doctor." Harry countered.

"They _all_ enjoy a good glass of wine, though only some will _appreciate _a very good glass."

They stopped on the outskirts of Ashfordly, partly to look around, but mostly so Iris could have a cigarette, something Harry wouldn't let her do. "Not in _my_ car."

"You're just like the Doctor." Iris commented as she blew smoke in his direction.

Harry walked along the invisible line where the sign was for Ashfordly and looked forward into it. "Nothing altering our perception." He looked back along the road they'd driven along. Iris had given him directions, but there had been signs indicating the town existed. But there was no traffic, the road was well maintained, and yet.

There was something he couldn't put his finger on.

"So how long has this town been here and not existing."

"MIAOW said from the late '70s, just one of the weird things they've been keeping an eye on."

"There's a lot of organisations that do that."

"Including yours?"

"Mine?" Harry said kicking a stone across the invisible border. "No shielding, no barriers, nothing. Hmmm..."

"LPI." Iris said expectantly.

"League of Paranormal Investigations." Harry supplied.

"We all do our bit, the Doctor just does the big things, and then not always." Iris said stubbing out her cigarette. "If you've decided there's no heat barrier, force field, or bloom effects in our way, can we get a move on?"

"Somewhere you need to be Iris?" Harry asked as he started the engine.

"There's always somewhere I need to be darling. But I left Panda in a bar on Barastabon, and even though I've got an unlimited tab there, he'll have taken a jolly good whack at it."

Harry didn't bother going with the 'but you've got a time machine' argument. As Sarah or Rose could (or would, or had or...whatever) attest, he couldn't get the right place or time. With Iris' bus he'd be even less sure of getting the right century or the right galaxy, maybe even the right universe.

"It's an English town." Harry said needlessly.

"You're full of totally obvious statements aren't you Mr Potter, I didn't take you for one of the Doctor's job lot."

Harry chuckled as he changed gear. "Don't worry Iris I won't be screaming for your help."

"I do love a bit of screaming, from the baddy mind, I prefer my travelling companions a little more capable than the Doctor's. Except poor Jenny, lesbian traffic cop, got the runs when we went spinning through the vortex. Never good to arrive to the sixth emperor of Draconia's coronation with brown trousers."

"Charming." Was Harry's only response as he paused looking at a single street sign.

"Oh she was, all my companions are perfectly charming, _unlike _some of the Doctor's."

"Onwards to the pub or should we check in with the local police?" Harry asked casually.

"So we can go through that tedious introduction, getting locked up and escaping rubbish? Who do you take me for? To the pub."

The woman behind the bar had taken his money without a thought and now he and Iris were sitting near the back of the pub watching some bloke in a big jacket called 'Greengrass' complain to whoever would listen about rabbits he'd caught or something.

"Maybe they all shop at a charity shop." Harry said.

"You call yourself an investigator." Iris said taking a long swig of her pint, Harry had merely wet his lips

"Well we didn't time travel."

Iris fixed him with a look. "Travelled enough through the mysteries of time, the winds of the vortex, ridding the horse of eternity unabated by a TARDIS to know what time travel is like?"

Harry blinked. "Sort of. But I've also got reception on my phone. Only one bar though."

"Cheeky. By you're thinking chuck. So I think we should have a wonder around."

"Now you sound like-" He was cut off.

"Shut it, while the Doctor and I may have shared things we are nothing alike."

"Of course Iris." Harry said, whetting his lips again on the pint.

"Who're those two Gina?"

"Arrived about half an hour ago, didn't say much. The young bloke barely touched his pint, but that old woman polished her pint off quicker than Greengrass on a hot day."

"Oi, I can hear you two bickering over there."

"Is that their car out there?" Blaketon nodded towards the window.

"Yeah, it looks right." Gina said tapping her fingers on the bar.

"Looks can be deceptive." Blaketon said as he reached for the phone on the wall.

"So, how long do you think it'll take them to get suspicious?" Harry said as he grabbed a branch of a tree, breaking it.

"What are you doing, Harry?" Iris asked slightly annoyed.

"It's real wood, the bar was too, the pint glasses glass and the beer?"

"Not the best, but better than the piss weak stuff you get in the 20th century."

"It's the 21st century Iris."

"It is?" She asked looking at him surprised.

"2004, it's the 21st century, 'it's when everything changes'. So said a friend of mine." Harry said looking around. It was a little town, he'd been into several of them, there wasn't anything too remarkable except the presence of red phone boxes with old phones in them and that all the cars were from the 60s. Unusual but not totally weird.

"Your friend knows the future then?"

"The long future, he was a Time Agent." Harry said carefully, Jack had only mentioned it a few times and so far he hadn't really learned much about them.

Iris shuddered. "Oooh, those shifty buggers, sticking their noses in where they don't belong, bossing everyone about. And their time travel, those dinky bracelets! Only a few steps better than Greel's cabinet jobby."

"Magnus Greel, isn't that to do with Weng-Chiang and the Tong of the Black Scorpian?" Harry asked somewhat unsure

Iris regarded him curiously, pausing as she was walking. "The Doctor is a talkative chappy Harry, he's really told you a lot about his comings and goings, with that marvellously violent woman he travelled with."

Harry shrugged. "The Doctor mentioned something, I was curious about time travel, Greel's name came up in a biography from the time, Ron thought it was amusing I was reading up about 'muggle magic'."

"Ron's your boyfriend then?" Iris asked as they continued to walk along the path.

Had he been eating, drinking or breathing Harry would have choked, instead he just stumbled slightly as he was presented with a mental image that he wasn't sure where it had come from. Instead he just eyed Iris Wildthyme's back as though it was her fault he had imagined Ron and _him_ in...he didn't even want to re-think about it.

It was worse enough that there were books from another universe that described the various 'adventures' a fictional version of himself got up to, but to be provided with a mental image with one of his best friends and himself...

When he caught up to Iris she was standing at a (very) small intersection.

"Well, that's it chuck, we've not been confronted or shot at."

"Bully for us, I think that's at least ten points to us." Harry said looking around, patting his pocket for his wand. Whenever someone said something like that they were guaranteed to be shot at.

There was only one worse thing, that could be said, and Iris said it. "I think we should split up."

Harry looked up at the sky, the clouds seemed to say 'I told you so'. "I'm going to look in at the local police station. Why don't you have a jolly good look around the town, maybe find a crypt or a hollow."

"Bloody hell." Harry said, mostly to himself. "There's a church in the town, I'm sure we can have a go at blowing it up, UNIT always liked a bit of that."

"Right you are Harry, all organisations are rampant theists of some sort, rebel against the government while picking up their pay cheque. Meet back at the pub in an hour!" She shouted as she wandered off.

Harry looked around, the silence of the Village being broken by a big old truck with a flat tray on the back driving past, with the man 'Greengrass' at the wheel. He stopped his truck and looked at Harry before leaving him in a cloud of diesel smoke from a badly maintained engine. Harry listened as the truck ground through its gears into the distance.

"Church..." Harry muttered to himself looking around. Then he paused and removed his phone from his pocket.

"Ioan, hello. Oh, nothing much, I think I'm stuck in someone else's adventure with a mad time travelling woman, in a little town possibly involving time travel or aliens, or wizards, or something, very likely about to be shot at." Harry said casually as he walked down the street, aware that there were some people looking out of their windows from behind frilly white curtains at him. It was like being in Midsommer, if such a town existed.

"Get Judith and meet me at my house, pack the Defender up with all the usuals and anything else, plus anything magical you think might be useful." Harry said looking around as he reached the small church. "No, I'm not really sure, but just in-" Then his reception dropped out as he entered the grounds of the church.

"Weird." Harry said as he looked around him. The ground hadn't been recently disturbed, there were no burn marks on the ground, there was enough room around the church to plant explosives, should the need arise. Plus no one knew this town existed so he wouldn't need to explain why he was blowing up churches. He'd never got around to asking the Brigadier how he explained it to the various officials.

Pushing open the doors he walked in, the pews were caked in dust. "Evidently not god fearing people." Harry said mostly to himself as he looked around. As far as his own interaction with these things he didn't really believe in anything.

The Dursleys hadn't been much for religion, Vernon had once or twice gone when he was trying to talk himself up to some higher up in Grunnings. That was at least a blessing, that the Dursleys didn't have any form of religious leaning, he shuddered to think what they would have done with that and his _magic_.

The Doctor had revealed to him that a great many gods, goddesses and others had influenced human history posing or taken to be gods, he'd seen some himself in the form of Chronovores. So this building didn't represent anything too much more than any other building he'd been within.

Though this church was exceptionally dusty, it was only as he looked around the front of the church a second time that he noticed, standing up on the pulpit a man, a vicar, standing there, with almost dead eyes, cobwebs had even formed around him. He'd not noticed him on his first look around the room but now he stood out like a statue or a mannequin.

"Hello?" Harry called out. "Umm...Priest, Clergyman, Preacher, Vicar?" This final word seemed to jolt the man out of...whatever it was.

Then his dead eyes seemed to stare down at Harry as he jolted again as there was another noise and the door to the church that Harry had carefully opened and closed opened with a noise. His wand was out in a flash, _not_ the gun he also had with him, just in case these people weren't dangerous and he was just jumpy, and then he could _just_ stun them.

"PC Bell-Bell-Bell-Bellamy." Stuttered the Vicar in an altogether creepy fashion.

"Vicar, heard there was some trouble in here. Mr?" Harry assumed this policeman who, like the rest of the town was firmly in the 60s. No taser, reflective pouches, or radio for this guy.

"I'm just looking around, thought I'd have a look around the church." Harry said carefully as he looked around for another exit and cursed Iris, there were a set of stairs, not down but up to the small bell tower.

"No trouble Mr," The man PC Bellamy paused extremely unconvincingly "just we've had some trouble round here recently."

Harry shuffled along one of the pews.

"Trouble? This seems like a perfectly calm town, unless you count ole Greengrass and his dodgy deals." Harry said extremely calmly with a hint of joking and a smile and hoped that Greengrass was, as he seemed in the pub rather than something else, an international smuggler or drug dealer who used the little town of Ashfordly to spread hardcore drugs to party goers of Britain.

But it seemed the latter was the case as both the Vicar and the PC laughed, well chuckled at least as his comment.

"You've met Greengrass then?"

"I encountered him in the pub, quite a character." Neither had commented on him holding his wand, which was odd, he had carefully pulled it back into his sleeve but he had been waving at the PC when he'd come in.

"Well, I just thought I'd check in, you know how it is..." The PC said looking at him.

"Yes," Harry nodded and ran for the door to the bell tower, pushing the bolts on the door across it.

"Marvellous." The door didn't lead to stairs to the bell tower, or at least not just, there were also stairs _down_.

"Is this what it's like to travel with the Doctor?" Harry mused to himself. "Lumos." He whispered as he took to stairs down, rather than the more safe and likely less interesting stairs up.

At the bottom of the stairs he realised there was another entrance to the crypt below the stairs as the PC Bellamy was waiting there for him.

"You, will come, with, me." He said, and then his hand slid open to reveal a gun.

"Oh bloody frakking marvellous." Harry said and disapparated.

"So these are Autons then, not seen since the 70s, fantastic fun plastic, though not in the sex doll sort of way." Judith surmised.

"Yes, _and_ they'll pop up next year." Harry said as they went through the storage sheds looking for the extra nozzles for the flame throwers.

"How many RPGs should we take?" Ioan called from where Harry had several of the weapons. Harry shrugged and looked at Judith.

"If they're just foot soldiers we're going to need the throwers more," She mused to herself and then shouted to Ioan "Take 3, we can each use one and dump it."

"Haven't you got some magic stick work you can break out?" Judith asked as Ioan and Harry as they loaded up the Defender with the equipment and expanding bags full of items.

Harry and Ioan looked at each other. "Well there's _Incendio_, that's a good one." Ioan said.

"If we get into a shitstorm I could give _fiendfyre_ a go, but I think the explosives might be safer." Harry admitted as he checked the equipment.

"So what about this woman, and her bus? You're not worried about what happened to her?" Ioan said as they got into the Defender.

"Iris?" Harry said, starting the engine. "No." He said as they drove past the double decker bus still in his courtyard. "From what I know about her and what the Doctor's said about her she's about as bad as him, probably worse in these situations."

"Are you sure you can fire that while we're driving?" Ioan asked slightly worriedly as Judith leaned out the window with the grenade launcher.

"Shouldn't you be more worried about where Harry got it?"

"No." Ioan replied.

"We've got to make an entrance Ioan, I tried the covert approach before." Harry said as he slowed down a little bit, he didn't want Judith accidentally hitting his Jag.

Iris leaned back into the chair, the _Autons_ had left her to her own devices and hadn't stopped her when she'd helped herself to the bar and some nuts. Unlike the beer the nuts were well past their date of expiry.

_Why_ Autons were here, pretending to be people from the 60s was another question.

Her questions had gone unanswered and it seemed Harry had disappeared, quite literally.

"You will explain the male's disappearance." Said the plucky woman who had been behind the bar.

"I will?" Iris said surprised. "Lovvy, I don't know half a thing about that bloke."

"Matter transmission will not be perfected in this time period."

"Could you tell me why you think it's the 1960s then, and I'll tell you where Harry disappeared off to."

This seemed to make them pause for a moment and the woman went off somewhere.

She returned a moment later. "The energy unit has instructed we remain here to carry out the prime instruction."

"Very informative, very little information."

"The male." It seemed like an order, coming out of the sweet 60s woman.

"Don't know anything, I told you. He's just some bloke that gave me a lift." Iris said as she rummaged through her handbag, somewhere inside she kept an energy blaster for such an occasion. Or she did, possibly that had been her last hand bag that ended up being worshipped as a god.

However she needn't have worried as the side of the pub exploded. To Iris' ear it sounded like several grenades had exploded against it.

Pulling a flame thrower onto your back was not the most graceful of actions Harry thought to himself as Judith covered them.

Ioan and he had layered a varity of charms onto the backpacks that contained the flamable fuel, _just in case_ so they wouldn't be a danger _when_ the shooting started.

_Then_ people started filing out of their houses and onto the streets their hands hinging open.

"Yoo hoo!" Cried a voice as explosions of pink energy emanated from within the pub.

"That's her?" Judith said as she fired the last grenade into a crowd of school children, each of them their hands open and shooting at the Defender. "Alien fake children" Judith shrugged as Harry helped her on with the flame thrower. "Terrible shots."

For Harry the image of young children shooting at him brought back some rather nasty memories, the explosion following the grenade hit was even more disturbing.

"RPGs first I think, thin out the crowd." Harry shouted he and Ioan were already using their wands, _Incendio _spells filling the air with the smell of melting plastic.

The crowd was forming up around them and the Defender coming in from three sides, with the pub taking up the fourth side. It was fortunate the pub was in the middle of the town.

"Masks down!" Harry shouted.

"_Coms up_." Said Ioan's voice in his ear.

"_Safety first, least you're not making us were high visibility vests._" Came Judith's cutting response.

The masks were a relevant safety precaution, no one wanted an energy weapon or whatever it was that Autons used and the fuel to mix and blow back at them or for them to breath something toxic "Let's go." Was Harry's only order as they started walking forwards in their chosen directions.

Iris ran out of the pub brandishing her little pink ray gun, which was overheating, though not as bad as when she'd faced Morbius in the Death Zone.

"It's alright lovvy, Aunty Iris is here..." She trailed off as she came out into a maelstrom of fire and melting plastic. Three figures were slowly walking away from a dark coloured Land Rover.

"You don't do things by half do you Harry Potter." Iris said to herself. It was like being at that Inferno project, when she and Timmy her glamourous assistant caught a ride into an alternate universe in the bus's secondary console room they'd had to access after that weretiger had gotten loose in the bus's loo.

It also smelt like that time Flossie and Fritter had been trapped inside the sex toy factories of Hoopla IV, the sights in those factories were almost as bad as the kitten workshops of Plovak 6 though quite horrible they did use the most lovely diamonds from Arcadia.

Harry Potter certainly wasn't one of the Doctor's lackies, at least not one of the _early_ ones. Maybe that shouty incarnation he might have had him along or the other one in his endless chess games.

Harry switched fingers quickly as his hands were beginning to cramp from holding down the trigger and fought the urge to wipe the sweat from his brow.

He'd definitely need a new pair of boots after this was finished he realised from the slag around them, and there'd be a long amount of clearing up, or a large amount of vanishing charms.

It had taken sometime to deal with the main population of the town, smoke was rising from several buildings they'd needed to tactically destroy.

Judith was on the outskirts of the town with Ioan checking the outlying buildings, they'd found 'Greengrasse' and dealt with him, like all of them as the Auton died its face sort of just...fell off.

Now though he was left with something of a dilemma, that wasn't really a dilemma, though it should have been, on both sides of it.

But it still troubled him slightly, probably too much time around the Doctor.

He'd found the energy unit in the church, plugged into a series of what looked like cables, or vines, or something, interfacing with the sub-structure of the town and the power cables, probably.

And now it was wrapped up in a box, pulsing away gently.

Harry knew that the Nesetene Consciousness _would_ try to invade Earth following the events of the Last Great Time War, _obviously_ that was still in the future.

But if he destroyed this energy unit of the Nestene would he be committing genocide?

Harry wasn't sure if he was ready to do that, even if the Autons here were ready to kill them, _if_ he and Iris hadn't arrived here would they have attacked them? Maybe they'd just continued on in their faux-1960s lives.

Iris walked over and shoved him gently. "All done chuck?"

"Ioan and Judith are finishing up, we'll have to come back and sort our the clean up." Harry said as he put down the box beside his Jag, which had managed not to get _too many_ energy blasts on it.

Another thing he'd need to sort out Harry thought to himself.

"What's that?" Iris asked gesturing the box.

Harry presumed she already knew. "The energy unit that was powering all this."

"And? Harry?"

Harry remained silent, looking up at the sky.

"The Nestene have only come to Earth once, I think anyway, UNIT encountered them in the '70s. The Swarm Leader was destroyed, so this is probably one of the others."

"A foot solider. Or something." Iris surmised.

"How would you like to take it away, find some boring planet or some alternate universe where it can live out its life?" Harry asked suddenly.

Iris stared at him for several seconds and then kissed him, tongue and all. Harry was too surprised to do anything.

"Nope, not the Doctor, a pity." Iris said as she stepped back. "There's room on the bus for another passenger, at least he'll be less chatty."

"Good." Harry said with quick glance to the sky he opened the boot of the Jag.

Much later they were back at Harry's house, though Ashfordly was still in need of another going over to clean it out all of them were far too knackered to do anything about it today.

Harry, Ioan and Judith agreed to return the next day. Leaving just Harry and Iris, and her bus.

"There we are, he's all packed away in a dwarf star alloy lined trunk I picked up somewhere." Iris said brushing the dust from her hands.

Harry shoved his hands in his pockets unsure what to say, which was odd, as Iris and he had chatted about a series of random things on the drive back here.

"Well, it was nice to meet you Iris-" He was cut off.

"Come here and give your Aunty Iris a hug Harry Potter!" She said and grabbed Harry in a bear hug.

She still smelt of cigarettes and dust, and ancient things, like libraries on worlds older than the universe, and pub floors walks over by the population of the universe, maybe that was what her TARDIS was like. At some point he found himself hugging her back, though he wasn't quite sure why.

"Ooh, a strong set of hands and muscles on you Harry." She gave his arse a firm squeeze and then leapt towards her bus. "And a good bucket of morals." She winked and rushed up through the bus to the cab.

"Toorah Harry Potter! Give the Doctor my love!" She shouted and then the wheeze groaning of a TARDIS began to fill his courtyard. Wind seemed to kick up around the red number 22 to Putney Common as it began to fade, sucking and blowing more and more wind around, dragging the air in towards it until its ancient engines reached their peak, dragging the bus from view as it faded away into the vortex.

"See ya Iris, don't forget to write." Harry said to himself.

-/

Andrew Fuller, council to several elements of the Ministry, looked up as an urgent letter flew in and landed on his desk.

Opening it he read it quickly.

_Ashfordly occupants destroyed, no survivors._

He cast an _incendio_ on the paper and the ashes crumbled into a dish he had for such things the ashes mingled with thousands of other messages.

Opening a diary he noted a small mark on the relevant page. The Ashfordly Experiment had been something a predecessor had started after the octahedron had been donated by his current benefactors.

His notation finished he open a small box filled with white powder he kept in a drawer. Licking his finger he dipped it into the powder. A most excellent invention his benefactors had provided, it meant through no matter what means or investigation he wouldn't be able to remember these side activities, though he _could_ make himself remember, should the need arise. Closing the box and regarding the ash before placing the white dusted finger in his mouth he mused, it was a pity that the Ashfordly Experiment had not been able to be used. Especially since Ms Weasley had so spectacularly failed with her intentions.

As the 'Retcon' fizzed on his tongue he concentrated on the panels next to the door to ensure that would be the last thing he remembered, were the memory to be recalled by someone.

-/

_A/N:_

_I had some trouble with this chapter, with various things getting in the way of starting it and then more things preventing me from finishing it. _

_I did think about uploading it as it was at about 1500 words, following Harry's meeting with the Brigadier, but it felt some what unformed and rather short. _

_So the rest of the story is a few ideas I've had floating around; Iris Wildthyme transtemporal adventuress. I never really decided that she'd appear but she is a great character who's easy to evoke. This incarnation is based on the Big Finish version played by Katy Manning._

_The Heartbeat story is an idea I had a while back and I wrote out a quick plot for it. It would have been something that Harry got up to while with UNIT in the 70s, Benton likely would have been along for the adventure and it still would have involved flame throwers. Why Heartbeat? It's a show set in the 1960s and lasted longer than the actual 60s, so obviously they're Autons in disguise._

_Thanks for reading._


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter 31**

"So your solution to having your car shot at by" Hermione paused and stared straight at Harry. "Unnamed forces. Is to buy another one?" She shook her head.

"How come you didn't go for something like a Ferrarri, or a Lamborghini, or a Porche?" Ron seemed to relish saying the car names. Harry looked over at Hermione who visibly sighed.

"I said go and look at some car magazines, _not_ the ones with the scantily clad women in them." She said towards her boyfriend.

"Why?" Harry asked curiously.

"Because he needs to know how to drive." Hermione after a pause.

"So you've got a car to go along with your licence? And you haven't told me?" Harry asked with a smile.

"Yes, Harry, I've got a car, though nothing like this, or any of your _other _cars."

"It's not as though I have _a lot_ of cars Hermione." Harry said, the car in question was, as Hermione had surmised something he'd decided to buy _because_ his Jag had a bit of energy weapon damage on it. The Lotus Exige he'd purchased wasn't any more practical than the Jag, but practicality wise that was what the Defender was for. The Exige was for driving fast with a lady friend in the seat beside him.

"What was that smile for Harry?" Hermione asked slightly suspiciously.

Harry spun around and stared at her.

"What do you mean smile?"

"You smiled weirdly for a moment, I've never seen you smile like that before."

"Oh? You've never seen me smile Hermione?" Harry asked.

Hermione shrugged. "No, I mean, not like that, it was odd."

"Strange even." Ron dropped into the conversation, he'd been doing that a bit dropping into their conversation unexpectedly, or it was possibly just because he and Hermione got stuck into conversations and then just forgot that Ron was there too.

"That I can smile on occasion?" Harry said grumpily shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket, only grumpy that they'd caught his 'private' smile.

Ron had walked away from them again and was once more walking around the car looking at it from different angles.

Hermione sidled up beside him. "To be honest" She said in a low voice. "I think the cars hold more appeal to him than any of the scantily clad women in the magazines."

Harry had to laugh at that. "Well his dad likes the practical stuff and there was that car me and him drove back in second year."

"Or what about that car the guy in that moving film, the one who drinks all the martinis."

"Aston Martin." Harry said immediately to Ron's question.

"Yeah, why not one of those mate, driving around all cool like."

Harry shook his head. "Ron, my work involves a secret organisation, doing secret, hidden from the public things, an Aston Martin would be a touch cliché."

"And you don't do cliché Harry, just the bachelor lifestyle with your expensive fast cars, classic cars and flying off into Merlin knows where." Hermione paused to take a break. "What happened to that other car of your that McLaren F1 that you got around in before you ended up with the E-Type?" Hermione asked changing pace.

"I'm touched you remembered Hermione."

"_You_ had a McLaren F1?" Ron said with some awe.

"What car magazine did you buy?" Harry asked curiously.

"Several." Hermione cut in.

"It's still around I take it out fairly often. It's good for a run down to Cardiff."

"Is that where the person that makes you smile like that lives?" Ron asked as he walked back over with a knowing grin on his face.

Harry wondered if Jack matched that description, he did make him smile, but not in _that_ way. He was sure that Jack would like to have a go with him.

Harry had told Jack more than once that his broom didn't swing that way, though Jack had mocked him about his "pesky 21st century attitudes".

"No. Come on, let's go inside, you didn't invite yourselves round here _just_ to look at my cars." Harry said after a moment.

"Have a seat while I put the kettle on." Harry said off handedly waving to his lounge room, he was fairly sure he'd cleared away anything secretive to his study and most of his weapons stayed out in the barns.

But still Hermione managed to find something 'interesting', mostly because he'd left them on his bookshelf, and _still_ had his footrest of them.

"Harry, what in Merlin's name is _: Harry Potter and the Trials of Wizardry_?" Hermione exclaimed from the other room.

"Buggeration." Harry said to himself and looked out the window, hoping for a Drahvin spaceship to drop out of the sky. Hopefully that wouldn't actually happen, Judith was "at least months" away from a treaty with a rogue group of them. There was always their backup solution to that problem which had been brewing for a while. Unfortunately it wasn't the most friendly and involved a lot of shooting, explosions and death. Ioan knew the minority details of that plan, but didn't _want_ to know anything more, probably wisely.

"Oh...that." Harry said casually as he walked in and tried to grab the book out of her hands, but she continued to hold an iron grip of it and instead just looked at him demanding an explanation.

Hermione stared at his bookshelf and didn't seem to notice that Ron had put his feet up on the footrest that was also made of the books.

"So we're all in those books, this JK person has written?"

"They're products of an alternate universe where obviously magic is a fictional realm and those are just a product of the publishing industry." Harry said casually though he pretended he didn't see Ron's confused and amazed expression at his casual use of "alternate universe".

"And we're all in there mate? All our time at Hogwarts and everything?" Ron asked after a moment.

"A bastardised version of our time there." Harry replied. "There are some things that are different."

"Different how?" Hermione immedietly asked.

"Well alt-Harry is a bit more..." Harry struggled for a moment. "He likes to 'put it about', plus I don't recall walking in on two Raveclaws girls 'experimenting' with kissing in the astronomy tower on my way to confront Snape about something." Ron made a noise.

Hermione snorted, but then paused. "Is it all like that?"

"No, the battles between Voldemort and me are a lot more timid when I _experienced_ them, there's no talk of massive blood loss, blunt force trauma...you know those sorts of things that leave you with more than a bit of a headache."

"And death?" Ron asked quietly.

"Plenty of that Ron, it is somewhat weird, creepy even reading another _fictionalised_ version of our lives. I don't recommend you read it." Harry said finally, but then added. "But Hermione if you _really_ want to, you can here, you're not borrowing them."

"Even though you've got them gaffer tapped up into a footrest?" Hermione asked with a huff.

"Because" Harry countered. "I don't want these getting out into the general public, Merlin knows how many copies already made it out into the general population. According to Judith's associates it's very popular with medical students, kinda weird."

"And you're not going to go and seek out every one of the copies of these books?" Ron suddenly asked.

Harry laughed. "I'm not the secret police Ron. These were part of a job LPI had to look into. I'm not going to hunt down every instance of the book and destroy it." Harry looked curiously at Ron, it was an interesting question to be asked, somewhat weird coming from his friend. Maybe it was part of this new...his line of thought was cut off by Hermione.

"I'd like to find out about the adventures of this alternate Harry Potter, but I understand you not wanting to disseminate these stuff to the outside world."

Harry stared at Hermione and wondered if she realised that she couldn't have sounded more unconvincing in her attempt to change the subject unless she'd randomly announced "I like sex." or something like that.

"Okay." Harry replied after more than a moment's pause. "So...?"

Hermione relaxed a little. "Well, Harry. You got your licence."

"I studied, did the time and got it yes. My driver's licence you mean or another licence?"

"Driver's yes." Hermione said and then looked at him. "What other licences do you have?"

Harry shrugged. "This and that. Pilot's, the helicopter one is almost there I've got other ones here and there."

"You can't just have a driver's licence and ride a broom can you?" Hermione chided.

"You were asking for something Hermione." Ron reminded softly.

"Yes, well, I, well Ron was, well I..." Hermione started again.

"Hermione wants me to learn how to drive a car, a muggle car. Says it's useful." Ron said, cutting Hermione off.

"It is." Harry confirmed. "And fun." This statement resulted in a glare from Hermione.

"I wanted Ron to get some experience _before_ we go for some regular lessons."

"Okay."

"I, we were wondering if you could take Ron out for a drive."

"I've got my old Defender which was..." Harry paused again and wondered how to phrase that his practically new _first_ Defender had been badly damaged going up against Ginny's bat shit mad followers. It did teach himself, Ioan and Judith how to order a new vehicle rated for a warzone, EMP and various other things that would help it survive if they ever had to drive through a spell fight again.

"Damaged, it's got a lot of spell damage but it's driveable, we can take it down a few of the lanes between the fields."

Outside they walked along several of the barns, including a few new ones he'd had erected to hold various pieces of equipment and other such things.

Harry turned around when he realised that Ron and Hermione had stopped.

"What's that Harry?" Hermione was pointing to one of the half open doors, inside the barn was a Bentley Speed Six.

One of the 'benefits' of massacring a town full of Auton duplicates who were impersonating people from the 1960s was that he had a town full of stuff, including some fantastic examples of well maintained 1960s and earlier cars, various farm machinery and everything else.

He hadn't decided on what to do with the town's contents, cars and other things. He'd left Judith with the task working selling off a lot of the boring cars the town's Auton duplicate people had, though he had found the example that Hermione was ogling at a more prosperous Auton duplicate's house.

He had of course offered Judith and Ioan anything of the town. Ioan found it a little bit creepy plundering the town's riches.

They had obviously checked to make sure the cars or whatever we're duplicates or Autons in disguise or anything, but everything _aside_ from the people was genuine.

The town though could remain as a useful bolt hole, just in case, so far no one had gone looking for it and the monitoring equipment they had in place would alert him should anyone get past the spells he and Ioan had laid into the roads entering the town.

"It's a Bentley, a Speed Six, and no Ron you can't drive that one." Harry said gesturing his wand at the doors and muttering a quick spell, they closed, almost laconically. "Come on, Not too far."

"What do you keep in all these sheds Harry mate?" Ron asked as he ran to catch up with him.

"All sorts of things, most of it secret and the other stuff you don't want to know." Like the body bags, hazardous materials bins, the hazardous materials suits and the various spell and potion ingredients Harry thought to himself.

"Nothing you can't tell us about." Ron joked.

"It's not as though you've got the severed heads of your enemies." Hermione said lightly.

"No, my enemies don't usually survive to get to the bottling stage." Harry said as he moved to open the end barn door. "Here we go, et voilà!" He said with flourish.

He'd not looked at it for a month or two, not since he'd been around the fields to check on the monitoring dishes that were hidden around the paddocks and fields that were part of his property.

The paint had peeled even more, some of it blotching like a festering wound. It was still mostly mechanically sound though.

"Oh." Was all Hermione said.

"What's that along the sides?"

"Spell damage, bat blood, not sure what else." Harry answered as he unlocked the doors. "Jump in and I'll drive us round to where you can have a drive."

Harry leaned back into his chair, the radio, rather than the TV was filling the room with some background sound. He felt like he needed a stiff drink, despite having had more than one following Ron's "driving". He remembered Ron being a relatively good driver back in their second year.

It was fortunate that the old Defender wasn't in brilliant condition when they'd started, after Ron had hit his fourth tree of the afternoon it certainly wasn't in any better condition.

Hermione had warned him, _just_ before she'd joined Harry as a passenger with Ron that he had had _a few_ lessons that hadn't gone well.

One that had involved Ron trying to use a supersensory charm, which had required Hermione to oblivate the instructor, hence why they'd come to him.

Then, the phone rang. Which meant one of only a handful of things.

Alien invasion. None were scheduled, or rather none that he was aware of.

Evil from the depths of history. None that had popped their icky little heads up, that was what the box of files that were sitting on the floor and his office were doing. As his past, the Doctor's present and his and the Doctor's futures grew closer and closer together, it was becoming time, more than ever not to just know what was coming, but what had come before, that was within and outside what the Doctor, Magister and the Doctor's companions had told him. Plus there were a few things that had been scratching at the back of his mind that he'd intended to look into in the past, but not gotten around to. Like the Intrusion Countermeasures Group, one of the groups that provided funds to the League of Paranormal Investigations, at the behest of a "Doctor John Smith", but he'd been meaning to investigate their actions aside from what he'd read in _The Shoreditch Incident_ by Hamlet Macbeth, his account did match what the Doctor had said of the events there, but some of it still warranted further investigation.

The phone was on its second ring as he contemplated what else it could be.

It _could_ be Judith or Ioan ringing.

As the phone reached its third ring he decided to just get up and answer it.

The voice on the other end of the line was interesting, and sexy, and surprising.

"_Potter._"

"Daphne." Harry said surprised, after their last...encounter he'd given her his phone number, should she wish to call him instead of their letters. Which we're really letters, well they were, they were letters to him, she hadn't exactly told him where he could address letters to her.

"_Potter._" She exhaled and then said in a softer tone. "_Harry._"

Harry relaxed into his chair, turning down the radio as he did so. "I thought you said that-"

He was cut off. "_I also said I'd think about it. It is rather quaint, this muggle telephone._"

"I find it far more convenient than sticking my head into a fire whenever I want to have a real time conversation with someone." Harry said with a smile.

"_I will admit, Harry, that there is something __physical__ about this form of communication, much like your conveyances, they are very much unlike" _She paused for a moment, thinking. "_What I usually use to communicate."_

"Oh?" Harry asked.

"_There a presumed level of familiarity in a conversation by fire._"

Harry guessed there would be, he'd only ever seen it happen a few times, and the most memorable brought back memories of Sirius and Hogwarts, neither of which he'd really thought about a lot over the past few years. Except Cedric of course. Though that was more about Cedric than the place.

"I think we're plenty familiar Daphne to be able to speak on the phone. How are you, by the way using the phone, I didn't think you had a phone connection."

He heard Daphne sniff. _"Hardly likely Potter, my home would not have such a __muggle__ device. While certain members of society may entertain muggle devices, my home does not have such things."_

"Of course not, hence I did not presume Daphne."

"_Though you gave me your telephone number, just in case."_

"Just in case you wanted."

"_An invitation Harry." _She challenged.

Harry wanted to shrug his shoulders and realised he wasn't sitting opposite Daphne, despite feeling like he was, having a conversation with her.

"If you like. So where if I might enquire Daphne did you find a phone to use?"

"_There is a phone box some ways from my home. Suitably enlarged of course I've found it rather comfortable."_

"A phone box that's larger within than without." Harry said smirking to himself.

"_If you like Harry."_

"You know you're sexy when you're coy Daphne."

"_Perhaps that's why this telephone is more intimate. When you can say things like that._"

"You can't into the fire and floo network?" He asked curiously, he'd never really thought about the complicated mechanics of how fires and the floo network, and how the communications and sociological elements of communicating in that way functioned. He wondered if anyone in the wizarding world had studied the sociological elements like that. Then he remembered that the wizarding world didn't have studies like that at all.

"_I sometimes forget that you weren't raised in a proper wizarding household._" She said with something approaching whimsy.

"Nor do I live in what I imagine would be a proper wizarding household either Daphne." Harry countered.

"_Of course, I haven't seen your house."_

"And I haven't seen yours."

Daphne chuckled. "_If we were conversing over the floo I would be able to rectify that very easily._"

Then Harry said something he didn't think he was going to say, in the back of his mind he fancied that Judith and probable Hermione (though not as crassly) would say he was thinking with his dick. "Perhaps you'd like to come over here."

There was some length of silence.

"_Mr Potter, are you sure, wouldn't that destroy some of your mystery?"_

"I'm willing to if you'd like to."

"_Very well Mr Potter, if you wish to invite me to your abode, I shall accept._"

"Have you pen?" Harry paused and remembered who he was speaking to. "I mean a quill?"

Harry stood out on the road that went past his driveway with a torch, even he didn't apparrate into his house, there was a lot of alien technology and other stuff around the place that made apparition difficult if not dangerous.

Then into the torchlight a woman apparated with all the grace and stature of lady walking an estate, or something, she was always very graceful, and made apparition look like something without effort or even thought, though she was somewhat surprised to find herself on a road and not within a house, grounds or something else.

"My house is just down here." Harry gestured with his torch.

Daphne looked around her as she apparated, there was obviously some disorientation in apparating via map coordinates, rather than to a place known.

It was interesting that Harry Potter knew she was capable of it, while the skill was something all wizards and witches _should_ know it was something that many were not fully practiced, it was an as much an art as a skill. Like riding into the hunt, ready for both a dragon or a peacock to come running out of the scrub.

It did not surprise her that the coordinates that lead to her apparition point _were not_ his house.

Instead she found her feet firmly planted on a muggle bitumen road, with Potter... Harry, holding a muggle portable lighting device.

Which meant, obviously, like his conveyance he lived a far more muggle life than many of the witches and wizards with whom she and her family associated with, while it was true some found themselves enjoying living within muggle society, they generally maintained a magically based lifestyle beyond the doors of their accommodation.

"My house is just down here." Harry gestured.

She nodded, Harry smiled. He did, she thought to herself have a nice smile, and an interesting one, there were so very many minor scars on his face, from the battles fought, and continued to fight, she had realised very early on that he continued to do so. Though the scars on his face were extremely minor and small, one had to be close, intimately close to have knowledge of them.

As she had.

Harry's house was a farm estate, as he led the way the lights around the buildings switched on, illuminating the courtyard area in a warm yellow glow. If Daphne had been in any of her other associates' abodes should would simply have thought, or rather not even considered who illuminated the area, it would simply be house elves or in some rare cases some wizarding families employed witches and wizards in lieu of house elves, she had only heard of this from her father and mother. It was a costly process, but some families did not trust, even house elves who were bound to the family.

However Harry Potter wasn't a regular wizard, Daphne doubted Harry was even a regular person by muggle standards.

There was no sign of his conveyances that she had ridden in and seen from previous encounters with him, she assumed they were within some of the structures.

Harry held the door open for her and gestured her in.

Inside it was also simple, there seemed nothing grand about his accommodation, though, Daphne had not really expected Harry to follow as such.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" He asked as he walked through the house, allowing her to take in the rooms.

Some of the doors had obviously been closed prior to her arrival, the scuff marks on the floor and carpets indicated that they were well transversed areas of the house, where Harry passed through without impedance. Those doors, shut, she would respect, being within, invited into one's house meant a certain level of respect for privacy or secrecy was expected from the guest.

"Yes, that'd be lovely." She called to him as she followed him into his kitchen.

While tea was mostly enjoyable all of the time it wasn't what she felt like at this moment, and there was a room she was curious to see.

Harry had not expected Daphne to walk in and kiss him, maybe he should ask her if she wanted tea more often...

Daphne woke up and for a moment tense, wondering where she was, looking around the somewhat familiar room she remembered her night of intimacy with Harry Potter.

The previous night she had made no secret of the curiosity that she had as she allowed her fingers to play across his body, the scars and injuries past apparent. There were spells, specialists beyond those in St Mungos who could treat such things, wiping the slate clean of such things that some in society found vulgar.

Not her though.

Looking to her side, she saw that the man in question had risen, looking to her other side she saw a note resting on the bedside table, where her wand was also residing. Picking up the paper, and it was _paper_ rather than parchment, and it was quite rough paper at that, the line across the top indicated it had been bound, very lightly against something else, the slight curve of the paper meant it had been ripped away, why someone would need a stack of papers like this was not immediately apparent to her.

Harry looked up as he saw Daphne walk into his kitchen, a scenario, a few years ago he would never have believed would happen. Though a few years ago he wouldn't have thought he'd nearly have killed Ginny.

A few years can do a lot to a man.

"If I ask you if you'd like some tea with your breakfast you're not going to grab me and shag me for all it's worth, again are you?" He asked with a grin.

Daphne smiled at him with a cool glance. "That Harry was a...momentary whim. You need not associate tea with sex, it would be most unbecoming in your modern life." She paused. "But I will have a cup of tea."

"Unless you'd like coffee, I have that also."

She wriggled her nose. "No thank you Harry, coffee is...not something I enjoy." She said looking around the room. "You live a muggle lifestyle."

It was a statement, rather than a question.

"Is living a wizarding lifestyle so good?" He asked, switching on the kettle. "Sticking your head in a fire versus a phone?" He nodded towards the phone on the wall.

Daphne starred hard at him. "A point to you then Harry."

"I sense a but coming." Harry said as he prepared the tea.

"No, Harry, I need not argue one living standard from another. You have chosen how you reside and are comfortable in it, even if you don't receive owls."

Harry shrugged. "In my business I don't need to contact a lot of people, when I do, there is a business that provides me with a service."

"Which allows you to remain anonymous."

"Amongst other things, but yes." Harry acknowledged.

"I know where you live now Harry."

"You know where my bedroom is also Daphne, should I be worried?"

"That I might apparate in?" She asked playfully.

Harry looked at her calmly. "Just don't, not into the house, not into the courtyard." He said seriously. "The road, my friends and even I do so."

"You have wards up?" She asked.

"Things are difficult relating to certain things like apparition around here, it's...complicated."

"And dangerous?" She asked.

"My life's dangerous and complicated Daphne." Harry said, and then the doorbell rang.

"Sorry, I'll just go and see who that is at this time of the morning." Harry said.

"I should like to find out what makes your life so dangerous and complicated Harry Potter." Daphne said quietly to herself, allowing a small smile.

Harry opened the door, his wand tucked into a pocket. There was a man, a courier standing at his door.

He offered him a package with his mail forwarding company's stamps on it.

After signing for it he closed the door and pondered for a moment.

Most, actually practically all his post, wizarding based arrived in the regular daily post. He did have one of the highest priced deals with the company which meant if he received something urgent, owl wise it was forwarded on at the fastest speed in the muggle equivalent.

"Who's sending me expensive post?" He pondered to himself as he tore open the box package the letter was sent in.

Inside was a slightly larger than normal wizarding envelope. The hand writing looked familiar.

_Hi Harry,_

_Long time, no messages. We fight a war and then you disappear._

_I've been working with Professor Sprout at Hogwarts and a few weeks ago something was delivered from the Ministry, from a research expedition, they sent it to Hogwarts because we've got the best facilities, and Professor Sprout's seen it all._

_Professor Sprout's off delivering all the Mandrake, we've had so many and since second year she planted more 'just in case' now we're growing them and supply to other places, so she left me with this "perplexing plant". _

"So how'd you get my number then?" Harry wondered aloud to himself leaning against a wall.

_Looking at the plant and the original environment it was found in I did some reading, a man wrote a paper, years ago about something similar Ioan Hrycek was the man's name, discredited by the ministry. But I looked further, supposedly he's working for you._

_Harry, I'm not sure what you're up to, but if you can help, then I think I need it._

_Your friend,_

_Neville Longbottom_

Harry shook the envelope and grabbed the photos that fell out. Typically of wizarding photos they were black and white and a little bit on the grainy side.

They showed a large spherical seed pod, with some tendrils of vines around it.

He'd never seen anything like it before, but obviously Ioan had and looking at it he was sure he'd heard something like this described to him before.

Which wasn't narrowing it down much.

Daphne looked up as Harry walked back into the kitchen, a look of concentration across his features.

"Was it something amiss?"

"Oh...yes." He said eventually.

"Something you need to address immediately." She stated rising from the chair.

Harry smiled warmly and drew her into an embrace, savouring her body as they kissed. "Something that can wait a moment."

She broke off the kiss and smiled wickedly at him. "Perhaps you will enlighten me as to what issues are at stake." She paused and then added. "Some day."

"Some day." Harry answered casually. "Maybe some day you'll tell me what you get up to, unless it's all hunting, managing the estate and..."

She glared at him. "If that is all you think of me Harry Potter you have a feeble imagination for someone of my capabilities."

"Well, aside from sex and a bit of mysterious small talk we're a bit light on details for us both Daphne." Harry countered, though Daphne seemed somewhat surprised by his blatant use of the word 'sex'. _Maybe_ Harry thought he should have used _shag_ instead.

"Not merely _sex_ Harry Potter. We're intimate as well." She said with a smirk. "If you'll walk me to the road then Harry."

"You don't need to collect your things?" The look he received from that question indicated she must have picked up everything and had been ready to leave when she came to breakfast. Or maybe it was just a playful look. Sometimes it was hard to tell, sometimes she just looked sexy.

"Are you certain of the issues of apparition here?" Daphne asked as they walked outside. "Is it not just some elaborate wards you learnt during your years of mischief and war?"

Harry shrugged. "Feel free to check for yourself Daphne."

Daphne removed her wand, twisting it around in her fingers and drew a long arc around, intoning something as she did so.

She finished and looked around her and then back to Harry.

"I see. Have you had any problems in the past?" She asked seriously.

"No, not as yet."

"You may need a bucket for the remains, should it happen in the future."

"I've been there, bought the mug and killed the t-shirt wearing idiot." Harry said without thinking.

Daphne gave him a strange look but didn't say anything.

They walked up to the road in casual silence.

"So, Daphne, should I expect a call from you again at some point?"

"You could contact me Harry, I am not as far removed from wizarding society as you are."

"That depends on your perspective Daphne, while I might shun certain trappings of wizarding life others, I am very much a part of others."

"Part of your fascinating lifestyle Harry?" She asked as she stepped closer and kissed him.

"Yes, and what of you Daphne, am I to remain ignorant of your life?"

"Perhaps." She smirked at him. "Or perhaps not Harry, I do find myself..." She started and then caught herself and stared and held his gaze for several moments. "Quite fascinated."

And then she disapparated.

Harry stared at the space she'd occupied for a moment or three. "Interesting." He shook his head smiling to himself.

"Ioan."

"_Harry, you're up early, I thought there weren't going to be any emergencies until early next year."_

"Just because I told you when they're going to make an appearance doesn't mean there's not danger in the world."

"_Your tone of voice suggests otherwise." _Harry wanted the glare at the phone but knew it'd do nothing to help, except make him feel better.

"We've got a potential situation."

"_Oh_."

"I remember reading an article that had excepts from something you wrote."

"_Back in my bloody minded days where I wasn't shunned you mean?_" The distaste was thick in Ioan's voice for that period of his life, or more to the point wizarding society, the Ministry in particular.

"Yes, there was something about a large seed pod, alien."

"_Hmmm_." Was all he said.

"I can't find the article, but I was hoping you had your notes."

"_I can look, what're you up to?"_

"Going and looking for more information from a friend." Harry said as he gave up looking around his desk.

"_Fine, I'll call you back later. Where is this problem?"_

"Hogwarts." Harry said and cringed as Ioan let out a string of expletives.

K9 looked up, or that was what the Mistress called it when he activated his sensors.

The phone was ringing.

Mistress had "popped out" to buy more lactic fluid from bovines and rendered endosperm and bran based consumable "bread and milk, the essentials K9." The Mistress has said.

K9's sensor activation was the direct result of the wired communication device the 'telephone' activating.

At this time of day it there was a 40 percent change that it was someone unknown to the Mistress, a 33.3 percent chance that it was someone who had a connection to the Mistress, of the remaining 26.7 percent, half were likely to have knowledge of the messaging system in place, and 50 percent of that were likely to leave a message. Of the other 50 percent 25 percent would attempt to get the Mistress's attention.

K9 activated his motor units and moved towards the messaging system as the phone stopped ringing.

"_Sarah, are you there, it's Harry, Potter?"_

K9 identified the voice as Harry Potter, an individual the Mistress termed as a _friend_ of the Mistress, he had an association with the Doctor Master, and had encountered the previous unit to himself.

"_I need to talk to you about something."_ There was a pause, but K9 could detect the phone line was still open. "_K9 if you're sitting there listening to this don't just delete this message. And please tell Sarah I'm coming alright?"_

Then the call ended.

Harry turned the key and grinned as the Lotus Exige roared with life. It wasn't as powerful as his other cars, but it was smaller and easier to drive around than the McLaren and less expensive to fix up than the Jag.

_Just_ in case there was any issue there was a small amount of weaponry in the boot.

Sarah looked up from her shopping bags as K9 twitched, his sensors twitching back and forth.

"K9?"

"Composite constructed motor vehicle has decelerated outside of the abode Mistress."

"A car's pulled up outside you mean K9?" She asked, sometimes she wanted to kick him for being obtuse, other times she had to stop herself from scratching the angular dog-shaped computer behind the ears.

"Suggestion Mistress, it may be Harry Potter." He announced suddenly.

"And what makes you think that?"

There was a longer than normal pause from him.

"K9?" Sarah walked around in front of the robot dog.

"He communicated and left a message while you were purchasing bovine lactic fluid."

Sarah looked down at the dog-computer. "And let me guess you were just about to tell me?" K9 had taken a dislike, if it were possible to Harry, though she couldn't fathom why.

Then the door bell rang.

"How many speed limits did you break on your way up here young man?" She asked as she welcomed Harry into her house.

Harry grinned. "None that they'd be able to track back to me, if anything it's just a blur or a puzzling smudge." Harry said and then caught Sarah's look at him. "All in the name of keeping the planet and all its people safe."

"And nothing about you driving fast in _another_ car I see Harry, you're worse than the Doctor."

"Only sometimes."

"Tea?" She asked walking into the kitchen. "I trust this isn't a social call?" She asked as she put on the kettle, she heard K9's motors as he joined them in the kitchen.

"Hello K9." Harry said in a dark tone.

"Harry Potter." He/It acknowledged.

"Did you hear my message I left for Sarah?" He asked coolly.

"A message was received from your telephonic system." Harry wanted to kick the dog-computer.

Sarah just laughed. "K9, I told you to call me if anything important came up."

"Yes Mistress." Harry got the distinct impression he wasn't 'important' in K9's view. Then the robot seemed to pause. "Mistress was returning shortly."

"And you thought you'd save calling me, I know how you hate interfacing with the phone system." She said sappily to the dog-computer, it just made Harry want to kick it some more.

"Your predecessor was much nicer you know." Harry commented idly.

Sarah seemed surprised by his comment, K9 let out a noise that Harry couldn't really identify.

"I sometimes forget you've known him for a long time." Sarah said looking out into her front room.

"You travelled with him for a long time Sarah, that's something I've never done."

"Oh, but Harry, you've got to know him..." She smiled. "I thought I knew him at times, then he changed."

"He does that. But you travelled for a long time after that."

"Yes and he never could get the landings right." She said shaking her head with a smile as she walked back into the kitchen.

"He does like to turn up when there's trouble, or maybe it's the TARDIS that likes trouble. Maybe it's the people around him that cause the trouble and he just happens to turn up. I suggested that to the Brigadier the other day, he had a cracking laugh at the suggestion."

Sarah looked had stopped making the tea and was staring at him. "Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, that Brigadier?" Harry nodded. "You've never mentioned you knew him, he's never mentioned you."

Harry shifted from foot to foot. "I...well...I met him after I re-met you, after our first meeting, but, I met him before you met him. It's a little complicated."

"You've time travelled. That's how." Sarah surmised instantly.

Harry laughed. "I'm glad you get it, talking time travel related meetings is complicated with people who don't get it."

"I don't think I'll ever 'get it' Harry. So you met the Doctor in the 70s after he met you for the first time." She stated as she added milk to the cups.

"Before."

"What?" She looked at him.

"I met the Doctor before he met me, though after he met me for the first and second times, but before he met me as he was in the 70s with UNIT."

"You're right Harry, it is confusing." She exhaled. "And I thought it was confusing after all that Game of Rassilon bluff."

"Though I'm sure it must have been nice to see him again." Harry said softly.

Sarah's face lit up with a smile. "It was Harry, to see him, older, but...him. Before he changed."

"Yes. Change." Harry said, and hoped Sarah wouldn't ask why he was in the 70s.

Which is what she did ask and she handed him a mug of tea and gestured towards the front room.

Harry relaxed into the chair and took a sip of the tea.

"That..." Harry started and found he wasn't sure if he wanted Sarah to know what he'd been up to. Their friendship was different to his other friends. Though a far more adult relationship, he still felt like she was the far more mature person in their friendship, though despite that she was still very young and full of life, like she could continue to run down corridors for the next 50 years and outrun the best of them.

Though she also had a policy of 'no guns', something she acknowledged that he didn't follow, _couldn't_ follow, guns or other deadly weapons. But while they sometimes dealt with similar things, they were parts of very different worlds.

"Is a long story?" Sarah offered with a soft smile.

"A very long, complicated and messy story."

Sarah nodded simply. "Another time then Harry. So, you didn't rush all the way up from Porthcurno to come and chat about old times with the Doctor."

"And confusing temporal situations." Harry joked.

"Precisely Harry, so come on."

Harry leaned forward to place his tea somewhere steady. "A while ago we were comparing stories."

"Yes." She asked levelly, unsure where Harry was going.

"You mentioned something about a seed pod a bit bigger than a cricket ball and something about it turning into a plant."

A look of panic spread across Sarah's face. "A Krynoid, you don't mean to say one of those has turned up?"

Harry shrugged, he wasn't sure and said so. "It sounds like one may have turned up, but I wanted to find out more information, as it sounded familiar."

"And something the Doctor never mentioned." Sarah added.

"The Doctor doesn't tell me everything, as I'm frequently telling people." Harry added slightly gruffly.

Sarah smiled at him. "I didn't mean it like that Harry, it's just, he was very 'I'm a Time Lord, you can't understand the implications' sort of thing sometimes with me."

"Almost every time I met him he had changed, though" Harry paused thinking back. "It never seemed as weird as it should have been." Harry smiled, in his childhood it was all much simpler than now where he had to worry about the web of time and its implications when he was in the past and now soon bumping into the Doctor who was yet to meet him coming into his own present. "So this Krynoid?"

Harry waved to Sarah goodbye as he walked down the path.

Hazmat suits would be a definite go when they got to Hogwarts, lasers though, had come some way since the 80s weren't exactly any more portable and it had likely been alien tech that UNIT had been mucking around with, especially with the Doctor absent from UNIT for a lot of that time.

Pulling out his phone he dialled Judith's number.

"_Yes, Harry, what do you want? I am busy."_

"How is that going by the way?"

"_The town is large Harry, but I'm working through the car portion of it, we'll have a hefty sum of money from this. Not to mention the buildings, furniture, we could well retire on all of this."_

"Is that what you'd like?" Harry asked curiously.

"_Shit not Harry, how boring would life be, no one shooting at me, no penis substitute wood waving wankers to mock."_ She joked.

"Good. I need you to look into a few things."

"_What sort of things?" _She asked with some skepticism.

"Things that go boom and bang." Harry replied.

"_Oh, good. I thought you usually sort that out_."

"I want this sorted ASAP and I've got a few other things to sort out today."

"_How many?"_

"They need to be high powered, explosives and bazookas, RPGs use your imagination."

"_And what's our target?_"

"Either something as large as a manor house or as small as a man though we'll need firepower either way. To fit into the back of the Defender or maybe into our magic bags as well."

"_Where in buggery is this?"_

"Hogwarts." Harry said.

"_I finally get to see where all the teenagers spend their days waving, polishing, rubbing and generally jabbing their wands." _She said with a snicker.

Harry shook his head. "Yes." Was all he said in reply. "Cash wise you know where to get it from if you need it, or LPI will reimburse you."

"_Of course you will Harry, I know you're good for that. You've got me selling a village full of cars."_

"Classic mint condition alien maintained cars."

"_Yes, I won't forget that part of the spiel when I get rid of them. Goodbye Harry. See you tomorrow._"

The World Ecology Bureau did not have a glamorous office like the UN, or even a secret public building like UNIT. It was in a set of office buildings that it looked like it hadn't moved from since the 80s, instead it seemed to have just bought up more and more of the offices around it as it expanded.

For one of only a handful of times he'd actually needed to use his 'official' identification as LPI. Not that it actually said what LPI stood for, though the League of Paranormal Investigations was registered and had the same clearance levels as things like UNIT and Torchwood, though he went places neither of those two went and dealt with things they weren't equipped for.

Though what he'd got was something both organisations probably did deal with; and that was paperwork, something to sign and then the files he'd requested.

There were two reports; one for concerning operations at the Antarctica base and then one for the events at Chase Mansion.

In the two incidents two men had been 'infected', Charles Winlett who had been killed at Antarctica and Arnold Keeler.

Harrison Chase might have been totally mad, but at least he'd documented everything, and the World Ecology Bureau had recovered the film following the incident. Which meant in grim detail was the transformation from man to plant.

It was a terrifying yet fascinating transformation the pictures showed and it showed the true scale of the thing beyond what Sarah described.

Harry just hoped he wouldn't have to deal with a full sized thing.

But just in case. "Judith."

"_Harry, you sound worried._"

"I am, make sure you grab a few 'just in case' weapons."

"_In case shit hits the fan and we get a whole lot of brown rain?"_

"Quite."

"_Fine I'll see what I can do and you want this as quick as possible?"_

"Yes, I'm off to send a letter now and then hopefully we'll be off in a day or so."

Judith sighed. _"Fine then, I'll work something out._ _Maybe you can call in an air strike."_

"I'm not sure how the Headmistress would react to that. Hogwarts is unplottable."

"_Those flyboys love a challenge and love blowing stuff up."_

"We'll save it for an extreme last resort, I don't want to have to call in favours with the RAF."

"_No you'd prefer to do it yourself._" Harry didn't want to admit to Judith that she was right so stayed silent.

"_Silence is also an admission that I'm right Harry. Good bye."_

The mail forwarding company he used looked, from the outside like any other shop front of a courier company and if anyone walked in off the street, would presume it was a courier company and they even did that work.

Rather nicely he wasn't greeted with 'Mr Potter' or some such the man behind the counter waited for him to produce some identification and checked it before greeting him.

While it was nice to have a 'regular' pub to go to where familiarity was nice, you still needed some security with things like this.

He could have sent off a letter from home, but he wanted this send as fast as possible and to get a reply in return with speed.

One letter was to Neville telling him to touch nothing and not go near it.

The second was to Headmistress Professor Minerva McGonagall, informing her that this 'issue' was a League of Paranormal Investigations matter and that he wanted to bring his 'muggle vehicle'.

He just hoped that when Ioan said it was hardened against electrical interference and magic he _meant it_.

Though driving into Hogwarts was probably going to be pushing it. But he wanted all the equipment with them and it was the most convenient way to carry it around.

"Any replies to these I need them as fast as possible."

"Via non-magical means?" Harry nodded, while he wanted the replies he still didn't want any magical birds flying to his house.

-/

"You're mad you know Harry, you want to _drive_ to Hogwarts." Ioan had arrived early in the morning, he'd spent the previous night collecting his notes and research about what he now knew to be a _Krynoid._

"You assured me that this" He thumped the side of the Defender, of which they currently had the bonnet, doors and tailgate open. "Was specced up to the ends, that it'd stand up to everything and beyond what the old one" Harry jabbed a thumb towards the barns where the old one resided. "was."

"_Hogwarts_." Ioan repeated.

"To the gates then, we'll walk from the gates."

"Why do you want to take it?" Ioan asked seriously as he connected some alligator clips to another part of the engine bay.

Harry leaned against the side. "Because..." He trailed off. "I want _not_ to have to rely on anyone in the castle, we're our own operation." Then he turned and looked at Ioan. "And don't you think it'll piss everyone off if we drive through Hogsmeade in this? To go and sort out an alien man-eating plant?"

Ioan grinned. "Yeah, it would. Though we might have to push start it. That's the only part I'm not sure, of course there is _getting _Hogwarts isn't called unplottable for nothing and if there were any semblance of _drivable_ roads to Hogwarts they'd probably be inundated with 4x4ers every weekend."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You've thought about this then?"

"Just a bit." Ioan said peering at the meters he was using to check various parts of the Land Rover's workings. "During that time when I was particularly angry with the Ministry I thought long and hard how to get back at them, to literally drive it into their heads." He said in a dark tone and then smiled at him. "Nothing beyond planning though."

Harry looked at him for a moment. "Hence why I trust you know what you're doing with all of this, that's not to say I don't."

"But you bow to my age and maturity."

"Well certainlyage Ioan." Harry chuckled.

Ioan punched him. "I needn't work on this, I do have several old brooms back at home, I could lash a few together and we could ride them into town."

Harry blinked. He and Ioan had had a game or two of 1 on 1 Quidditch on the odd occasion and Ioan had really preserved all those skills from 12 or so years ago.

"Maybe once we're there you can show all the little ickle wizards and witches how an _expert_ flies."

Ioan laughed a short laugh. "That part of my life is well and truly behind me Harry. A small bit of curiosity..."

"And a large amount of cultural superiority and paranoia. I know." Harry said.

"At least I didn't make the mistake of shagging someone insane enough to believe lock stock."

Harry nodded. "I've done the two smoking on her and her former-followers enough."

"And do you think she'll ever be trouble again?" Ioan asked curiously.

As Harry was about to answer a slightly beaten up faded red Ford Transit van drove up.

"One of the 'spoils' from Ashfordly?" Ioan asked as it stopped beside them.

"I had to get the gear around somewhere, why not?" Judith answered as she got out. "It's a mean beast this. Still in good condition." She thumped the side.

"So I hope you've got some interesting things." Harry said as they walked around to the back of the vehicle.

"I'm sure you'll find a use for it if we don't need it." Judith said as she unlocked the back of the van.

"Please not a suitcase nuke." Ioan held up his hands.

"No, but I got a good load of Panzerfaust 3s, they're RPGs for those of you" She looked at Ioan. "Not in the know about these sorts of things."

"I feel so honoured amongst pyromaniacs." Ioan deadpanned.

"That's fire, this is explosive, surely there's a difference?" Harry questioned, then Judith shut the doors quickly.

"What's that for?" Harry looked at her.

"Post's arrived." Harry looked around. But didn't see anything, he crossed his arms and Judith just smiled and then a van came driving up the road and pulled into the courtyard.

Harry took and signed for the small package, allowing the man to leave before he opened it up.

There was only one letter inside and he knew the handwriting from several transfiguration assignments' marks and comments.

_Dear Mr Potter, _

_I must say, such an official letter. _

_Though it seems you have followed your career choice we spoke of, several years ago with vigour. I had no knowledge of your League, though the Ministry is also very tightly lipped with regard to it as well, and as we know, leagues and orders only do work the Ministry does not like. _

Harry chuckled to himself.

_But I do not like to be __told__ what is coming into __my__ school, so any apparatus may be brought to the gates. _

_As far as moving your muggle apparatus to Hogwarts, there is a goods train that services Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, you must arrange for yourself a train wagon on which your apparatus must be securely tied for the journey. I have made arrangements that the train will wait at Hogsmeade for as long as it required in order to return you to your origin. _

_This is a most fascinating and troubling situation Mr Potter than Mr Longbottom should need to contact you. We are however in the process of isolating the plant. _

_Good day to you Mr Potter. _

_Headmistress Minerva McGonagall_

The letter was signed, something his homework assignments never were.

-/

Harry had his hands thrust into his pockets, it was a cool verging on cold autumnal day and the three of them were standing at an out of the way, at a location that could if one were being _very_ positive be called a train station. Though at best 'rotting ruin' would be a better name for it, and it wasn't just some concealment charm that was making it seem like it, it really was just a rotting ruin.

The Defender was tied down and covered by a dark green tarp, so it was practically impossible to tell _exactly_ what it was.

Then they heard the noise of a train approaching.

"That's not the Hogwarts Express." Ioan observed.

Harry nodded, it wasn't, it had a green body with black front.

It was pulling one passenger carriage and a few goods wagons, it slowed as the last of the wagons came level with siding on which the 'station' was. Harry walked quickly over as a man jumped out.

A few moments later he waved the others over.

"So this is it, I get to see Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Judith said with relish looking between Ioan and Harry who were both looking out the window in thought. She kicked both of them, breaking the trance they were in.

"Sorry." The said together.

"This isn't a train ride I thought I'd make again." Ioan said.

"Nor me." Harry added. Looking to the corridor of the train and thinking back to all those fights, squabbles really with Malfoy and his goons. Buying chocolate frogs and those cards, meeting Ron and Hermione for the first time.

Judith then kicked him again.

"What was that for?" He growled.

"You looked like you were getting nostalgic, I thought you said we need to stay clear headed on this one and not get distracted."

Harry and Ioan frowned. "I didn't say that." Harry said after a moment's thought.

"Well I've said it for you. Considering what's happened at this school with your penis obsessed culture you shouldn't let yourself get caught up in nostalgia."

Harry snorted. "Yes, nostalgia for killer professors, giant snakes, revelations from the past, tournaments of terror, sadistic professors and general heartache."

Judith smiled. "Precisely what you thrive on Harry."

Ioan just shook his head. "I was thinking of Quidditch, my first kiss, sneaking into the kitchens, Slughorn and his slugclub." Then his voice turned a darker edge. "Then there's all the people who treated me like a leper, a crazy, deviant."

"Join the club." Harry muttered.

"Isn't this lovely, we're all remembering things." Judith smiled at both of them.

The flat wagon was, along with the rest of the train parked along the platform. Judith had allowed both himself and Ioan a moment of nostalgia before they set about removing the tarp and the straps securing the Defender, now Harry was sat inside it, with Ioan beside him.

"So, moment of truth, are we about to _drive_ into Hogsmeade or..."

"Or are you going to be pissed off that we have to push start it?" Ioan finished.

"_You _and Judith will be push starting it, I'm not the boss for nothing." Harry said with a grin and turned the key.

There was a quite sick noise of the engine failing to turn over and dials flickered for a moment.

Ioan made a noise.

"Above military spec." Harry said. Ioan jumped out and opened the bonnet, checking the fuses and removing several.

Then he gave Harry the thumbs up.

Harry turned the key again, and grinned, as he, and the rest of the surrounding area was rewarded by the sound of an engine turning over.

Harry let out a sign of relief and carefully drove off onto the station.

"See, nothing to worry about." Ioan said as he climbed in.

"Yes, nothing that your expression of extreme worry couldn't fix." Judith muttered as Harry drove slowly to the end of the platform where they'd opened a gate up in order to get out.

"Now onwards to Hogwarts." Harry said, a grin forming across his face.

Headmistress Minerva McGonagall stood with Neville Longbottom at the gates to Hogwarts.

She had been informed that the goods train had arrived more than 10 minutes ago. She had informed Mr Longbottom that their 'guests' would be arriving soon. Despite the recent developments she wanted him here.

_Why_ Potter wanted to bring a muggle contraption here, especially after the disaster in his second year she didn't know.

Although, this was not the young boy, or the younger man who had defeated _Voldemort_, he, like Mr Longbottom were young men, on with the lives.

In the distance she heard something that she had never heard _here_, in London yes, in the muggle countryside, but not here.

Somehow Harry Potter and this League of Paranormal Investigations had made a muggle vehicle function, under muggle powering mechanisms if the sound was anything to go by.

Then a dark coloured vehicle drove up and came to a halt outside the gates, and thankfully Potter, she presumed it was Potter driving the infernal thing, switched off the vehicle's propulsion, ceasing the awful noise.

Potter walked around to the open gates.

"Headmistress McGonagall."

"Mr Potter, it's good to see you." She said allowing a smile to him and raised an eyebrow. "Your associates."

"Judith and, you may know-"

"Ioan Hrycek, young man."

"Harry doesn't think so." He said gruffly looking over at Harry. "Hello Professor." He said with a little more of a smile.

"Well, you know Mr Longbottom."

"Hi Harry." He said with a nervous smile.

"To my office I think, gentleman, lady." McGonagall said starting off for the castle.

"Sorry for the long time Neville, I had some issues amongst other things and I guess...time got the better of me." Harry said awkwardly. He'd meant to stay in contact with everyone after Hogwarts and yet...hadn't. A combination of Ginny, alien incursions and his stint in the 1970s had pretty much thrown him out a lot with many things.

"I heard, about Ginny and things." Neville said awkwardly.

"Ah...yeah." Was all Harry managed as the got to the doors to Hogwarts. Harry stopped for a moment.

Neville laughed. "I was like that too, it take getting used to Harry, being back here."

"Looking around corners, waiting for death and deadly danger to be around all corners." Harry said.

Neville noticed Harry's hand drifted to a thing strapped to his leg, as he looked he noticed the two others who were with Harry also had them.

"This way, he said, the woman who seemed mostly uninterested with where she was.

"Your friend's noticed the guns." Judith said quietly to Harry.

"I know. We did fight a war and a mad man together. That does tend to instill some things in you." He muttered back. "so what do you think?"

"Now that I'm here in one of the most powerful wizarding institutions in wizarding Britain?" Every time she said 'wizarding' it was dripping in sarcasm.

"Less of the sarcasm Judith I think."

"OH&S would have a field day with those staircases." She jabbed a thumb upwards.

"OH&S concerns." Harry shook his head with a smile.

As they walked the stairs and finally got to the Headmistress's office Harry remembered something, Dumbledore's portrait. Not just that, but Dumbledore and his messed meeting in the past and what his portrait might want to say or...Harry didn't know.

It was something he would need to look into _later._

The office was as it was, different and yet the same.

It made him somewhat sad as he saw Professor McGonagall sitting herself down into the Headmistress' chair. Even though Dumbledore's death was in the past and even though he had seen him alive and kicking in his own personal past and in the longer form more distant past, Harry still felt a pang of...sadness. The past, was the past, except when it was the present and the future, so says time travel.

Now here they all were seated before the Headmistress's desk and all he was lamenting was the absence of Fawkes and the missing pot of lemon drops.

Harry was dragged roughly back to the present by Judith kicking him in the shin.

"Now, Mr Potter, I had, as your message _instructed_." She paused, peering over her glasses, as though to imply as the student, even in his former capacity shouldn't be instructing.

Harry relaxed for a moment but realised that McGonagall was _pausing_ rather than just critiquing his wordage in his letter, which did not bode well for next few minutes.

"However after I had responded to your letter two agents of the Ministry arrived to inspect the seed pod."

"The bloody Ministry." Ioan muttered to himself earning another glare from McGonagall, Harry wondered if Ioan was censoring himself, in a situation like this they all were a little more liberal than 'bloody'. It was coming back to Hogwarts, sitting here before the Headmistress' desk that did it, made them all feel like students again.

Though, come to think about it, even when the Order had met, they all still had treaded Dumbledore like that, or maybe it was just Dumbledore's power and standing that made people act like that.

"The Ministry wished to inspect the seed pod." McGonagall repeated.

"I suppose you mentioned my organisation's involvement?" Harry asked curiously.

"They were aware your League would be involved." McGonagall said looking directly at him. Harry filed the _wording_ of that response away for later as it implied several interesting and worrying things.

"Mr Longbottom showed them to the isolated glasshouse."

"Greenhouse 8, it's a bit run down, but it's away from the others, and from the castle, Professor Sprout used to grow specialty potions ingredients there, but some got a bit volatile and hard to grow because of the spells used there." Neville explained.

"So there's a lot of magic been used there..." Judith said mostly to herself.

"Madam, there's magic present throughout this school." McGonagall stated annoyed.

"So, you took them to see the pod and...?"

Neville paled quite a bit and looked over at McGonagall.

"And one of the Ministry officials informed me that his associate had been _stung_ by a plant and promptly departed."

"You didn't stay with them in the greenhouse?"

"They ordered me out Harry!" Neville said distressed. "And with all the mould and moss the windows are really hard to see out of, I was going to get a broom from the Quidditch pitch to spy...I mean keep an eye on them. But you know me with brooms."

Harry had to commend Neville's forethought, even if it didn't carry through, but what was coming was even more worrying.

"I sent Poppy to tend to him. While she wished that he be moved from the greenhouse into the castle I bowed to Mr Longbottom's persuasion to keep the man outside of the castle."

Harry nodded over to Neville. "And a good job for listening to him."

"Poppy has been keeping an eye on the man however, it appears is undergoing some form of _transformation_."

A chill went down Harry's back as he recalled the photos from the World Ecology Bureau's file, of Harrison Chase's "experiment".

"Green, mottled, almost scales forming over 98% of the body." Judith said in a monotone.

"Yes, madam and Poppy said his body temperature has been rapidly dropping, lower than even a mereperson closer to even a vampire's temperature, yet the man was still conscious and requesting meat."

"Rare meat." Harry said in an equally worried monotone.

"How...?" McGonagall asked looking at the three of them. "As Poppy was worried, as was I about the man's life I conceded, there had been a house elf tending to his dietary needs."

"Idiot women." Harry said standing up. "Both of you. Come on, Neville, show me to the greenhouse. Let's hope the cycle hasn't hit yet."

Neville looked between the shocked McGonagall and Harry.

"Mr Potter I will not be spoken to..."

"Please, Professor, just show us the way." Harry said in a slightly, though not much, softer tone as he forced himself not to jump to conclusions of death.

At least not until he saw how buggered they were.

"Should we bring the Defender around?" Judith asked as they followed the still very spry McGonagall down the stairs which had all lined up for them.

"I think the best place for it is out on the cobbles."

"Why's that?" Neville asked as they quickly took the steps.

"You'll see." Harry said cryptically and hoped that Sarah and the World Ecology Bureau had embellished when they said the Krynoid exuded a 'psychic connection' with the plants around it. But knowing his luck it would be in the same field as the Nestene's psychic affinity for plastic.

Harry was rewarded with the latter as they quickly walked towards the greenhouses. Plants were moving, wriggling of their own accord, the grass suckered at their feet.

"Please tell me the suckering is how you wizards get off when you're rolling around in the grass."

"We like to save sucking for the broom cupboards." Ioan responded sarcastically, "or the alternate Harry does at least."

Harry had to hand it to them, keeping calm and all that.

"What?" Neville asked.

"Never mind." Harry muttered.

"It's all dark Mr Potter, Mr Longbottom?" She gestured towards the green house.

All its windows were darkened out, though as Harry walked up to it the roof of the greenhouse was still clear.

"Wands out I think, and weapons too." Harry said quietly to Judith and Ioan. "AK and empty everything in." Harry said looking to Ioan who nodded.

Minerva listened as Harry spoke quietly to his two associates. "AK and empty everything in." She presumed that 'AK' was some muggle term. As all three of them removed muggle guns from pouches on their thighs. Mr Potter and Mr Hrycek were holding both their wands and the muggle weapons in a stance that suggested they had done this several times before.

"Open the doors, carefully." Mr Potter's tone suggested an order as did his expression.

"Very well Mr Potter, but I must insist calm, this is my school and I will not have violence here, that is very much in the past."

"I don't think so Professor." Mr Longbottom replied in a worried tone to her side, he, also had his wand out, but was taking a far more defensive stand to her side than the aggressive stance that Mr Potter and his associates were adopting.

"_Alohomora_." She said as she indicated the doors. They sprang open revealing something...inhuman.

Then there was a roar of...she couldn't think, it was like a painful birth cry of a dragon or something else in pain.

"Oh fuc-" The rest of Mr Hrycek's words were cut off as a tentacle stretched outwards from the greenhouse, and impacted on a shield by Mr Longbottom in front of them both.

Out of the corner of his eye Harry saw that Neville had cast a shielf to protect himself and the Professor.

"Oh buggering frak." He said. "As soon as we see something solid start firing."

"And you think we can contain it?" Judith said looking into the darkness of the greenhouse.

"Not a chance. I'm just being optimistic." Harry grinned wildly.

Then Judith started firing.

Mr Longbottom had dropped the shield protecting them.

"You alright Professor?"

"Thank you very much Mr Longbottom."

Then she started to hear the noise of muggle weapons' fire, a noise she had heard many more times than she cared to recall in her life. It was then joined by two other, separate sounds of fire.

She was about to cry out to Messers Hrycek and Potter when she heard the unmistakable cry of an unforgivable curse being said with determination and a degree of composure by Mr Potter and then Mr Hrycek. A pair of deadly green curses flew into the greenhouse, impacting on something.

Then the roar noise increased.

"Fall back!" Mr Potter shouted.

Harry backed away quickly. Two killing curses hadn't even slowed down the man who was almost before their eyes turning into a full sized Krynoid.

"It's amazing how fast it's developing." Judith said as they ran away from it. "Faster than anything in the World Ecology's files." She continued as the Krynoid began to smash up the greenhouse.

"You're going to need to evacuate the greenhouses, get everyone back into their houses." Harry said quickly. "Now, Professor."

"Slytherin's practicing on the pitch Harry!" Neville said quickly.

"They can stay there as long as they don't get any stupid ideas."

"Leave that to the Gryffindors." Ioan commented with a smirk looking at Harry.

"Really, must you take this so casually!" McGonagall exclaimed.

Harry looked to her and then realised where they were. "Yes." He said simply as he re-holstered his gun. "I think high explosives time." Harry turned to Neville. "Keep an eye on it, if you know any good weed killer spells now's the time to break them out Neville." Harry said quickly and motioned for his associates to go.

"Harry" Neville asked looking at him. "What is that wizarding becoming?"

"He's not a wizard any more, it's more..." Harry shook his head trying to think. "A carnivorous plant with an appetite for meat." Neville flinched as something was broken inside the greenhouse. "We need to stop it before it can achieve seed dispersal." Neville paled, he knew what would happen if things that violent spread out.

Running was hard, the grass, the trees, everything was moving and thrashing around. The grass wasn't just sucking, it felt like it was really trying to latch into their boots and hold them down.

When they got back to the Defender the effects were less, but even there, the moss between the cobbles seemed to be moving, like little soft pockets of death.

"Two AKs and how many bullets?" Ioan shook his head. "Not the return I thought I'd have." He looked towards Hogwarts.

Harry shrugged. He hadn't really thought about it, that he'd left Hogwarts in fight and fire and upon his return it was again fight and fire, but of the alien variety made a sort of sense.

"Symmetry." Judith said out of the blue. Harry didn't even bother looking at her.

They had packed the Defender full of everything they might need, mostly in several expanding bags, all neatly ordered into plastic crates, now they were just throwing them into backpacks to haul back over to the greenhouses.

Some of them, those in cases they opened quickly to carry the weapons. As they shut the door again they looked like they were ready to liberate a large city as a band of freedom fighters...

"All we need now is silly uniforms." Judith said.

"Have you seen what we wore?" Harry gesture towards Hogwarts. "Been there and done that."

"I've still got my house patch somewhere." Ioan mused, ignoring the weeds trying to make their way into his boots.

"Musing on the past later, alien weed creature present." Judith reminded.

Neville looked at the odd brick shaped things Harry and his friends were placing around the greenhouse, most the windows were broken by now, but the doors, which he'd double locked, and transfigured a brace across it to prevent it being opened had remained shut. He'd managed to have a quick look at one of them, the side facing the greenhouse said 'Face Toward Enemy'.

Harry seemed very competent and well, especially considering the rumours around him and Ginny and what she had been saying about...everything.

Not that he listened to rumours, but Ginny hadn't exactly been quiet about those things. Then she disappeared and hadn't been heard from.

He'd wanted to write to Ron but, it wasn't easy to bring up...stuff. Even stuff during Voldemort and...everything. It still felt raw, and yet dry, as though it was in the past and everyone had moved on.

The woman, Judith, she seemed older than Harry or his friend Ioan. She most certainly didn't seem to be a witch, or if she was she hadn't used her wand at all and Professor McGonagall didn't recognise her _and_ she didn't know her name.

"Umm." Neville started.

"We're setting up explosives for when the Krynoid breaks out of the greenhouse. We think it'll slow it down."

"Oh..." Neville said, he hadn't meant to ask that question, he hadn't realised he had, he was still thinking about the question he was going to ask.

As another inhuman roar escaped from the greenhouse Neville found himself thinking back to the lunch he'd had last week in Hogsmeade, well he'd _said_ he was having lunch in Hogsmeade, but the Professors at Hogwarts didn't need to know where he went after he left the castle.

"You should ask her out again. Or him again, you never know. But I think her, somewhere out in real world." The woman, Judith said with a sly smile.

Neville looked around, he was _sure_ he hadn't been talking aloud, he'd been told he sometimes talked to his plants, but this was hardly a normal day.

"No, it's not a normal day Mr Longbottom." Said Professor McGonagall behind him, "Not in the slightest. What's Mr Potter doing, what are all these expandable bags doing her?"

"Weapons, and explosives."

"Young lady? What are you doing? What do you mean?" The Professor looked down at the ground where Judith was tying together lengths of fine wire.

"In reverse order, weapons and explosives." Judith said and looked over as Harry swore, quite loudly.

"...ucking hell." Harry came running up, mud over one side of him.

"Problems?" Judith asked sweetly as Harry cast a cleansing spell, shucking some of the mud of himself.

"Tentacle caught me by surprise. We ready."

"Just waiting for it to break free." Judith said and smiled Harry met hers with a grin.

Harry picked up one of the anti-tank weapons and slung it over his shoulder the others did the same. Then he drew his wand.

"Blasting curse I think." Harry said.

"Mr Potter!" Harry stopped and turned, he'd almost forgotten that Professor McGonagall was still here.

"Professor is everyone in their houses?"

"Yes, but I was just informed several house elves are missing." When Harry didn't react she looked at him harder.

Harry sighed. "If they were servicing that thing they've probably been eaten, I'm sorry."

The Professor turned a slighter shade of white. "And now you intend to destroy the greenhouse?"

"Better a controlled demolition than one by the krynoid."

"Crin-oi-d?" She looked at him.

"Blasting curse, Ioan, Neville, care to join in Professor?" Harry asked adopting a stance.

Minerva McGonagall was about to reprimand Harry Potter as he attempted to adopt an attacking stance, despite the _muggle_ equipment on his back when the roof of the greenhouse shattered. A feat on its own, even that, the oldest of the greenhouses had spell proof glass, it could only be removed by trained professionals, spells had to be cast to carefully remove the glass, and it couldn't simple be shattered like that.

"You might want to block your ears Professor." Judith said quietly. The woman had some how managed to creep up and stand beside her while she had been thinking.

"Why in Merlin's name do they want to destroy the greenhouse?" McGonagall wondered aloud.

"In three, two, one." Harry said in a calm voice. "_Confringo_." Three spells of excessive force exploded out from the wands of the three wizards stood there, there was an almost pause as each threw up shields and then the blasting curses hit the whole greenhouse exploded with mighty fury.

"To stop the Krynoid from growing straight up and onto your castle. It's easier to fight near the ground." McGonagall realised the Judith woman was still talking. "And thank you for the shield." McGonagall looked down at the wand in her hand and smiled. _That_ had been purely an instinctual reaction, she didn't even recall incanting the spell.

"Though you might still want to block your ears."

Through the smoke he could see the...the thing...the Krynoid, it looked...Neville couldn't figure out what.

It was as though the wizard, whom he knew this thing _used_ to be had been taken over completely, a complete transformation.

Not like a werewolf or an animagus, this was...perverted somehow. The man's legs were more stumps.

"Like trees." He whispered mostly to himself. And the man's body seemed to be morphing, changing and _growing_ before his eyes.

"Do you think this'll work?" Ioan shouted at Harry.

Harry shook his head. "But it'll give us some thinking time to break out the heavier artillary. Firing in three, two, one!" He shouted and squeezed the trigger.

Minerva McGonagall conjured a semi-solid transparent wall as she heard Harry Potter shout at the top of his lungs "Firing in three, two, one!" She quickly added a sound deadening charm to it. Then, as Mr Potter finished shouting she saw him squeeze something with his hand, how he managed to juggle all that equipment he was holding she didn't know, but he seemed very practiced at it.

Then the area around where the greenhouse _used _to be exploded, something hitting the _thing_.

She dropped the wall immediately after the explosions, and then the ground started to rumble.

Harry cringed as the Krynoid wobbled around and then seemed to force its 'feet' into the ground, then the whole ground rumbled and seemed to shift below their feet.

"Oh crap."

"I think you've pissed him off."

"Anti-tank rockets I think." Harry said swinging the weapon from his back. "Stand clear!" He shouted in a tone of voice he'd learnt from the Brigadier back in the 1970s.

Harry fired his weapon, it hit with a disconcerting lack of explosion or anything really.

-/

Far away, from the castle on the edge of Hogwart's wards a man sat on a broom, covered in an invisibility cloak.

He allowed a moment to focus in with the omnioculars again. Potter was being more efficient than he had planned for. That the man had arrived in such a short amount of time was unexpected. He had thought the transformation would have been at a greater stage.

As long as the creature reached maturity was all that was required.

-/

Ioan and Judith's weapons were slightly more effective, in annoying the Krynoid and blowing away chunks of it, but it also seemed to force another growth spurt and it continued to grow.

"Fall back." Harry shouted as the ground distorted as the Krynoid sent out waves of roots and tentacles along the ground.

As they backed away he reached into his jacket removing several grenades and pulled the pin and used his wand to propel them towards the Krynoid. They entered the folds of the creation and there were dull thuds of explosions along with a smell of burning mulch but it didn't seem to have any effect.

"Where's your defence professor anyway Professor?" Harry asked as they joined Professor McGonagall and Neville.

The Professor seemed thrown for a moment. "Some classes are taken into the Forest for 'hands on experience' Mr Potter, now that we thought there wasn't as much darkness in the world."

"Not as much, but we approaching fuc-"

"Language Mr Potter!" The professor decried Harry raised an eyebrow and looked back to the Krynoid which seemed to be consolidating its position, that brief moment of sudden growth seemed to have thrown it off in its development cycle. "Up territory."

Judith was unpacking grenade launchers.

"I hope you've got a plan."

"That smell of mulch and the growth spurt I think we can use it." Judith explained.

"Force it to keep adapting?" Harry mused.

"What about it being tapped into the ground, we're practically swimming in magic, at least that's what Dumbledore used to say when I was here." Ioan said as he also started to pull out weapons from his own bags.

"Umm...Harry..." Harry turned and realised Neville had been eavesdropping. Or at the very least listening in. The Doctor always liked to say there was a difference. Or maybe Ioan, Judith and himself had been talking in the face of danger, casually, while those not used to a giant alien weed creature looked on.

Maybe that was more plausible.

Harry really thought this should worry him more, the alien weed creature, rather than plausibility, which didn't seem to matter in reality sometimes.

"Neville, mate, yes?" Harry said with a slightly too eager reassuring smile, or it may have been the assault rifle that he was holding that made Neville stare at him a bit.

"Umm...that greenhouse, well, the one where that thing used to be, it's set away from the castle so there should be less magic, if we could move it further from the castle the less it would be..." Neville shook his head. "I was just thinking, if it's growing so much Harry, it needs fertiliser, food, or something, if it is a plant, very few plants, magical or otherwise can be sustained on just magic alone, even the soil isn't _that_ rich."

"So we make it go after something more meaty." Ioan said as he took the offered grenade launcher from Judith.

"What does it eat Harry?" Neville asked, wondering if he had something in the other greenhouses.

"It's carnivorous and it's already eaten several house elves," Harry paused and then added. "Probably."

Neville paled and looked over at the Professor who was watching them converse with a worried expression on her face.

"So we tempt it with something tastier, Ioan" Judith looked up at Ioan and Harry recognised her expression it was either a brilliant idea she'd thought of or something incredibly disturbing.

As it turned out, it was both. "Those Quidditch players you like to go on about, they're all strapping young lads and ladies aren't they? They're nice fresh meat."

Minerva McGonagall stared at Harry Potter for more than a second as he explained what he wanted her to _request_ Rolanda to ask the Slytherin team to do. It was _perverse_, but if it saved the school, then the Slytherins would need to be the brave and courageous ones.

Rolanda Hooch stared at the note that the Headmistress had sent through and looked back over to the Slytherin Quidditch team that she had been supervising with some of their more audacious practice moves.

This was an even more audacious, dangerous and, given the temperature they would need to cast more than one warming charm on themselves.

"Are you sure this isn't just your excuse to get a bunch of wizards..." Harry trailed off as they shifted closer to the Krynoid.

"Please, Harry, I am older than both you and Ioan."

"Finally admitting your age." Ioan muttered. Judith shot him a look of death.

"But I'm not about to approach such _young_ wizards under the age of consent. That would be wrong."

"Some of them are in their final year." Ioan mentioned offhandedly with a smirk.

"Well, we'll just have to see won't we." Judith smiled.

"It's like working with Jack." Harry despaired. This plan was not something he had expected to need to resort to. "But we will certainly see something." He said to himself. He looked back up towards the castle, he'd instructed Professor McGonagall and Neville to start flinging cooling and freezing charms at the Krynoid when the Slytherins started their 'dinner run' as he'd thought of it in his head. It was a better name than 'attraction run' which is what Judith had called it.

Whatever Harry thought, a moment later that was changed by the boldness that the Slytherins were showing as a pair of them flew towards the Krynoid in not much more than their underwear. They hovered for a moment, tempting the creature before a tentacle flung out, narrowly missing them and then they flew away.

Then another pair, and another, and then the Professor and Neville started to fire their spells.

For a minute or two Harry thought that it wasn't going to work and he'd gotten the whole of the Slytherin team naked for nothing.

A sentence he thought he'd never think, _ever_.

But slowly, tempted by the fresh meat presented to it the Krynoid up rooted itself and slowly shifted away from the freezing spells and shards ice that pierced it, transfigured by one of the most accomplished transfiguration professors.

Then himself and his associates began their new assault, targeting certain areas that Harry and Neville had identified as key areas the creature would attempt to regrow or mutate around. Further sapping its energy as it tried to adapt to its new surroundings, almost morphing and changing, like the shift between wizard and animagus form.

Harry swiped his wand down casting another _Avada Kedavra _at a gaping wound, the Krynoid shuddered visibly as the spell struck but it continued to move towards the Quidditch pitch where the almost naked Slytherin team continue their cycles of temptation.

Minerva McGonagall took a hold of Neville Longbottom's shoulder as the creature moved away from their position and outside of any optimal striking distance. Mr Potter and his associates continued to attack with brutal efficiency.

"Professor?" Neville looked over at her. He had very well stepped into the position of temporary Herbology professor while Pomona was transporting the various excess plants they had in the Herbology department.

"Mr Potter and his associates seem very much more equipped to deal with this..." She trailed off, she wasn't sure what this was, despite what had been said to Mr Longbottom about this being a _plant_, this was far more something else. However, what she had found out about Mr Potter's League, she could scarcely believe he was tied into something so _deviant_ as that, it was the realms of Trelawney and tea leaves to be believing in such fakery and designs created for muggles.

"I could help professor." Neville continued.

"I won't have one of my professors getting themselves killed fighting...that. Especially when there are people very capable-" She paused as she witnessed Harry Potter cast _another_ killing curse at the creature. She had lost count of the amount of times that he had cast that particular curse since he had arrived on the grounds of Hogwarts today. She had thought that curse would never again be cast since the battle that they had participated in. But it was the ease with which he cast _that_ curse and the way he and his associates wielded their muggle weapons, with such proficiency and ease.

She breathed in the cool air, hoping to clear her thoughts, but the scent of battle was on the air. "People who are very capable Mr Longbottom." She paused again as another pair of Slytherins made a darting, tempting run on the...the thing, the creature. Its size and presence was outside anything she could call even vaguely familiar, larger than a dragon and according to Longbottom and Mr Potter a _plant_. While herbology was by far _not_ her specialty, something about it, something intrinsic about it, it seemed _unnatural._

It felt as though it did not belong here, in their presence, not just because it was attack and a threat to her, her students and Hogwarts, there was something _more_.

"Harry thinks it's _alien_." Mr Longbottom, Neville, Minerva thought to herself. He was, at a young age very proficient and was well on his way to become a professor at Hogwarts. She would have to use his name, he, like Mr Potter had ceased being one of her students a few years ago.

"There's no such thing as aliens." She said almost immediately. "Did he say that to you?" She asked in a worried curious tone.

Neville shifted. "He implied it, but his friends-" Neville stopped as a large chunk of the Krynoid exploded to one side. But the creature continued to move towards the Quidditch pitch, but it was noticeably in distress, shaking, swaying as it did so.

Harry recoiled as a piece of the Krynoid exploded away. He and Ioan quickly threw up shield over the three of them as goop showered down.

The Krynoid visibly shook and shuddered as it attempted to adapt to its constant attack.

Though it continued to pursue its flying prey that tempted it, and only sent out tentacles to threaten them. Although, it was also moving faster towards the Quidditch pitch, having working out where the naked morsels of meat were coming from.

"You think you can get down there and lay the high explosives in its path?" Harry asked Ioan.

Ioan gauged the distance and nodded. "We'll use the last the artillery when you let off the explosives." Harry said. They were running somewhat low on their rocket propelled grenades. They were, today really earning the money the Ministry paid them, just in weaponry used.

Ioan took off along the seldom used path to the Quidditch pitch. It wasn't used because it was steeper, rockier, and because it was seldom walked far rougher, but back in his day they had used to get back to the castle after practicing, or to get the best seats for a game. He took this path because it took him past Madam Hooch's office, and there was a giant carnivorous alien plant blocking the way to the Quidditch pitch. He'd like to have thought he'd never think a sentence like that, but in some of his darker times, he did, on occasion wish that the things he knew to be true would rip some of the magical world asunder, just so the deluded idiots could see that he wasn't a mad blundering deviant.

Rolanda Hooch hovered with practiced ease, her wand out ready to deflect the _creature_'s attack on the students. It seemed an insane strange proposition for the students to do, to lure the creature so that it could be attacked. But it was working, and it seemed that some of the things she'd taught them _had_ actually sunken in.

The Gryffindors may think because of their past cup wins when the likes of Potter and the Weasley twins, Merlin remember Fred Weasley, that they had single stake in the Quidditch games.

The next pair flew back, sweat over their bodies from the vigorous flying needed to evade the creature's advances. "Very good Ms Higgs." She said as the pair flew past. Her older brother had also been a good Quidditch player, despite being deposed as Seeker by Draco Malfoy some years previous when he had attended Hogwarts. It seemed such a time ago, though so many lost one could never forget the costs.

She held up her hand and grabbed one of her students as they went to fly past, gesturing with her wand at the other as the creature shifted a portion of it exploded _again_, no doubt the efforts of Mr Potter and Mr Hrycek, but the Headmistress the message she had received, _avoid_ at all costs the creature's touch.

The further attack did not seem to slow the creature.

"Professor?" They asked looking back, their faces, still with sweat, while she had charmed their brooms with warming charms, she knew their faces were sweaty from concentration. She made a note to give a considerable amount of points to Slytherin for their _bravery_, something they would likely disapprove of. "Keep your distance from it, but keep going." She gestured. Looking around, out of the corner of her eye she saw someone, not in Hogwarts uniform, at least she thought she did.

Ioan smiled, no, he grinned as he kicked off from the ground. Madam Hooch always kept a couple of _specialist_ brooms in her office, 'just in case' she'd always said. Ioan wondered if giant alien weed creature qualified.

He resisted the urge to cry out as he embraced for a moment the joy of being on the outskirts of the Quidditch pitch, it all seemed so small now, small and petty, not the pitch, but the wizarding world, its government, and now, here it was, threatened by something they swore didn't exist.

He pushed the broom back down, faster and faster, towards the base of the Krynoid, then he pulled up, and brought himself into a gentle hover, edging away from the Krynoid.

He exhaled softly, it was surprising how fast the creature was moving, down here on the ground it was shifting along on whatever it was using to move. He pushed away a bit further and started to plant the high explosives and their triggers. They were relatively sure they would work, certainly _theoretically_ they would work in the magical environment, they were somewhat complicated, but there was a lot less magical energy down hear the Quidditch pitch than near the castle. Madam Hooch insisted on it, he recalled, some spells could interfere with a rider's performance, though he did briefly wonder what setting off several kilos of high explosives here was going to do to a rider's ability.

But that was something they could worry over if they won themselves another day.

Or if not, then everyone would be eaten by the Krynoid, the wizarding world would find out about aliens, and shortly after that the human race would be consumed by the Krynoid's offspring, Ioan thought to himself wryly.

Having set the explosives he kicked off, pausing to wave to Madam Hooch and narrowly avoid the Krynoid's clutches.

"Set Harry." Ioan said leaping off the broom and running towards them in a practiced move.

"Should I cry fire in the hole?"

"Would anyone understand if you did?" Judith asked as she fired off the last of their grenades at the now gaping wound on the side of the creature.

"Go and warn Hooch, I don't want any of the Slytherins near." Harry paused and looked at his watch and then down to the pitch. "Do you think you can get over there in 1 minute, the Krynoid should be positioned-" Ioan was already on the broom and kicking off.

Harry sighed and for a moment wish he was in Ioan's position, instead, he had to be the responsible one.

"Responsible for the giant alien weed Harry. You can go and fly around with the semi-naked Quidditch players later." Judith chuckled to herself.

Harry just grabbed the nearest weapon and fired several more shots, if they did any damage he wasn't sure. They were getting towards the bottom of the bag, so to speak with regard to the weapons they'd brought and even _he_ had thought it was a bit of an overkill with the amount of weapons they'd brought.

"I know you've got your eye on a few of the older players Judith. I happen know the way to the Slytherin common room if you'd like an introduction." He said casually.

"Please, Harry." Harry raised an eyebrow at her serious tone. "Their dorm rooms, I do want some privacy, though, an audience is a bit of fun too."

Harry looked down at his watch. "Fire in the hole." He muttered to himself and squeezed the trigger. Its little red light lit up to show it had transmitted and then there was a rather large explosion.

Minerva McGonagall felt the ground shake and the air move as the _creature_ exploded, the explosion ripped the earth beneath it, and tore the creature apart. She felt Neville's hand on her should steadying her against the blast wave.

"Thank you Mr Longbottom." She said as she tried to steady her voice. There wasn't, from their vantage point much they could see left of the creature.

"Harry doesn't do things by halves." He said in a tone of awe.

-/

The man cursed to himself, Potter was even more creative than he had initially believed. He quickly wound the omnioculars backwards to find what he was looking for.

While the creature had been developing and growing, one particular portion had developed faster, satisfied he would find it he wrapped the invisibility cloak around himself tighter and gripped the broom, shooting at speeds faster than the average Quidditch player towards Hogwarts' own pitch.

-/

Ioan grinned and chuckled to himself, he always said he'd blow a hole in wizards' understanding of life and its place in the universe.

There was now bits of that life and a sizeable hole in front of the Quidditch pitch.

"You're riding _**my**_ broom Mr Hrycek."

"That's alright, we only saved your necks Rolanda." Ioan said casually.

"I believe we enabled you **Mr** Hrycek and your associates to perform what you just did."

Ioan noticed out of his peripheral vision some of the Syltherin house team slowly floating towards the...remains of the Krynoid.

"I wouldn't-" He started.

"What?" One of them shouted.

"Go near it, it could still be dangerous." Ioan said darkly. Most of the alien stuff they'd dealt with in the past few years was dangerous after it was 'dead' some of the things wouldn't stay dead. But Harry and the information he had gathered, especially from the World Ecology Bureau suggested they treat the remains with as much caution as any live pods, like a biological agent which meant they'd need to break out the uncomfortable hazardous material suits. Even a bubble head charm wouldn't afford as good a protection as the uncomfortable, brightly coloured suits could.

"How dangerous?" One of the younger Slytherin's asked behind him. Ioan pushed himself around with the slightest gesture with his wrist, the broom turning on its own axis to face them.

"More dangerous than anything on Earth."

-/

Harry dug the poles out of one of the remaining magically expanded bags, he had praised Hermione many times for her creation of hers when they were following the path of the horcruxes. But it was that idea that had lead to him creating these, the bags were one of the most useful items he had. He stabbed another one of the poles into the ground. Judith was behind him with a huge role of yellow tape that said "CAUTION" in black against a yellow background. He'd actually accidentally brought the bag in question, it had been with the hazardous materials bags when he'd been packing everything. He'd actually only ended up with the tape because it had been particularly cheap when he'd been buying the hazmat suits.

His organisation wasn't exactly the 'put up tape to alert people of the dangers', at least most of the things up until now had required more hypnotising, and careful investigation, or explosives, rather than tape.

"You think they'll think that the tape is for caution, rather than what's beyond?" Judith commented cynically.

Harry turned around trying to think through Judith's thought process. "Because it's plastic you mean?"

Judith smiled at him. "Precisely."

Harry shrugged, he didn't really care to think along the thought processes of the wizards here. He more hoped they'd get done fencing off the area, with enough tape and poles to tie it off on. The explosion had flung it across a large amount of space and they needed to collect it all before anyone curious wanted to investigate further.

Information on cleanup and disposal had come more from the World Ecology Bureau than from Sarah. One had been blown up in Antarctica, later surveys had found it had been incinerated in the blast, but the whole site was still a 'zone of contamination' that UNIT had helped clear up. The second one with Harrison Chase had also been destroyed and cleared up by the World Ecology Bureau and UNIT they'd incinerated everything, and then incinerated the filters that had filtered the incineration and then whatever was left had been sealed away.

He intended to do the same, and he definitely wanted to stop McGonagall or any of the other Professors vanishing it away or performing some other spell to rid them of remains.

As Harry and Judith walked mostly silently around the disaster zone they'd passed near the Quidditch pitch.

"Eyes forward Judith, you shouldn't be spying on the Slytherins."

"They've got their clothes back on now Harry."

"Yes, spoil your fun spying on the underage witches and wizards, many levels of wrong." Harry commented back as he waved to Ioan who seemed to be trying to make sure Hooch and her students kept their distance.

As they walked back up the hill towards the where they started Harry took in the beauty of Hogwarts, ignoring the stench of the Krynoid and the bits that had stuck in the bushes and everywhere. Then looking around he saw Professor McGonagall's face as she walked closer towards, it was as though she could really smell the Krynoid's still burning corpse. Or maybe she just didn't like the particular colour of the CAUTION tape.

"What is this Mr Potter?" She fingered the tape.

"See, told you."

Harry wondered if it was a coping mechanism his old transfiguration professor was using, focusing in on one particular foreign object, rather than the huge remains of the alien weed creature.

If it was, then denying reality was taking on a whole new meaning.

"It's a plastic tape barrier, it's got CAUTION written on it Professor." Harry said, keeping his tone calm. Neville was beside the Professor looking from Harry as he was talking to the smoldering Krynoid behind.

"And _what_ is it doing on my school grounds?" She asked, still focusing on the tape and Harry.

Harry really couldn't read the Professor, she didn't appear to be in shock, well, no more shock than she had from anything so far. So instead he looked to Neville, who shrugged a little bit.

"That's to stop anyone from coming into contact with the Krynoid." The professor twitched, very so slightly at its name. "It could be very dangerous."

"How dangerous Mr Potter."

"Of unearthly danger." He resisted the urge to say 'literally'.

"In that state the _creature_ stillposses a threat to the school?" She asked astounded.

Harry relaxed slightly, so the professor did acknowledge the existence of the Krynoid. At least he didn't have to deal with 'reality denial', Harry pondered for a moment where he'd learnt the term, very likely Ioan had used it in one of his essays.

"Yes." He answered simply. "Until myself and my associates have dealt with it I don't want anyone out here." He said adopting a more official tone. "Madam Pomfrey should do a full body check of the Slytherin team, if they've had even the slightest contact inform me." He looked at the Professor calmly. She nodded a short nod.

"You should keep all your students inside the castle." Judith added. "The less they see of this the fewer questions you'll have to answer."

"Very well Ms..." It seemed to annoy the Professor that she didn't know Judith's full name.

Harry could feel Judith smiling behind him.

She turned to leave but stopped. "Could this not be sorted out more promptly Mr Potter" She paused looking to Judith and then back to him. "I am sure you are aware there are several spells to clean up after such incidents so that there are no muggle witnesses, states can be returned to their previous forms." It was unsaid that McGonagall wanted or could do so.

Harry shook his head and wondered if he should mention that the Krynoid was alien. "That thing is beyond..." Harry trailed as he thought better of it, the small twitch around the eyes of his old Professor.

Judith though didn't see or didn't care. "Earth." She finsihed for him.

"Earth." McGonagall repeated with doubt.

"Using magic before we have most of it away, especially considering its birth from a wizard, the interaction of magic could be disastrous, even in death, we know a wizard's body still contains power, with that any magical meddling could result in the most dangerous consequences." Harry rattled out, he was sure he was channeling the Doctor as he gave that explanation.

"Very well Mr Potter, I shall issue an announcement preventing anyone from exiting the castle and continue to keep the curtains drawn across all windows that face the grounds." With that she turned and walked back up to the castle.

"Harry, do you think I can-" Neville started as McGonagall was out of earshot.

"No." Harry said immediately.

Neville blinked. "No?"

"You were going to ask to get a sample of the Krynoid to study." Harry answered.

"Yes." Neville nodded. "Why not, now that it's dead." Neville asked innocently.

Harry wondered how Neville could have returned to being so innocent, after the battles they'd fought.

Or maybe he'd just become even more cynical, maybe it was all the people he'd- Judith punched him, lightly, on the shoulder.

"You were over thinking Harry, go and get the hazmat stuff, I'll do the talking." She said soft, though firmly.

"Yes sir." Harry mock saluted.

-/

It took them several hours to hack up the remains of the Krynoid, and shovel it into the bright orange hazardous material barrels.

All the time inside the loathsome suits. Even with the fans and cooling charms within it was still not the most pleasant experience.

Though between them and becoming a Krynoid Harry chose them as did his colleagues.

Though now, they were down to the last part and they had a second use for their flame throwers, which he wasn't sure they'd need to use again after Ashfordly.

They had scoured the area around where the Krynoid had been destroyed, with it all removed, but he just wanted to 'scorch the earth' of any remains. _Just in case_.

It did though present a disturbing image for Headmistress McGonagall to come across when she ventured outside in the early hours of the afternoon.

The area around the greenhouses damaged by explosions, shot through with bullets, the earth ripped and furrowed by roots, and the soil, grass and trees smoldering under assault by flamethrower.

"Everything should recover soon, so says Longbottom." Said the woman, Judith behind her, Minerva tried not to be any more startled than the scene presented before her. The woman seemed able to sneak up on people, without making any method of detection.

"Oh really young lady?" Minerva arched an eyebrow, despite the age difference between this woman and Mr Potter she was still young compared to herself. At least she was mostly sure this woman; Judith was younger than her, though older than Mr Potter but there was something to her, she seemed to behave around Mr Potter and Mr Hrycek in a similar manner.

"It's necessary." Judith said as she walked back down towards where two smaller figures, both in different, though still clearly protective coveralls and large face masks. Minerva had thought to ask why a bubblehead charm, something Messers Potter and Hrycek would know and could cast with little difficulty.

But instead they were wearing the large cumbersome _muggle_ masks that covered their face and eyes.

Mr Potter came trudging up to greet her several moments later.

"Mr Potter?" She asked, her displeasure impicit in her tone.

"It was necessary Professor." He said sadly.

"Your associate informed me as such. I thought I should inform you, Madam Pomfrey, despite what you think of her." She paused eyeing him. He stared her in the eye and matched her gaze and held it, it was almost as if Harry Potter were challenging her, or forcing her to continue to stare, it was nothing like the gaze of something like Albus, Harry Potter's gaze was almost mesmerising. She shook her head quickly and looked away. "She has conducted extensive inspections of the whole Slytherin team and found no evidence of infection or indeed any contact with the creature." Potter visibly relaxed upon hearing this information.

"Was there something else Professor?" He asked, she realised she had been staring, watching Mr Hrycek and Judith continue to scorch small bits of land.

"I have been informed the train that brought you here will depart tomorrow morning, it is too late to depart tonight. I have had some guest rooms prepared to limit your contact with the students."

"So a return to Hogwarts." He said amusement in his voice, though she couldn't tell what particularly amused him. He had changed, she reflected as she walked back up to the castle, casting a gaze back as he rejoined his associates. He was no longer the young teenager who had studied and fought for his life, nore the young man who defeated Voldemort. He was something different, changed by life more so than she'd imagined.

-/

"You two are behaving like you're on one of those house make over shows." Judith said from where she was lounging by the fire, a glass of wine in her hand. The rooms they had been given were down a small corridor just off the entrance to the castle, there were three individual rooms and a small lounge area where they all were.

"What?" Harry and Ioan asked.

"Walking around, rubbing the stone, tugging on the curtains." Judith chuckled to herself. "Or maybe that's what you'll be doing in your rooms."

"It must be very good wine."

Harry poured himself a glass. _It was_. "Rather nice, mellow, warm, rather memorable."

"Like your schooling?" Judith fancied.

"Nothing like." Harry said as he finished his glass and poured himself another from the carafe.

There was one thing he had asked of the Headmistress, which Harry looked at his watch he'd attend to when the school sat for dinner.

Walking the steps of the Headmistress' office and the halls and stairways that lead to it, Harry...felt old. It made him think back to when he was young, younger. The terrors, the fun, the fear and the danger, the friends made and...those lost.

Then, without really thinking about it he was in the Headmistress' office, and the painting he had come to see was set up on an eazle at eye height.

"Hello Albus." Harry said, using the man's name, something he'd not really done when he had been alive.

"Harry, my boy. My, haven't you changed." Chuckled the painting of the old headmaster.

Harry didn't bother waiting, engaging in small talk. He just asked. "So, did you know it was me?"

The painting of his old headmaster leaned forward, his eyes twinkling, Harry fancied the painting was about to offer him a lemon drop.

"When?"

"In the '70s, Gideon and Fabian, the kidnapping. A man met you on Foula."

Realisation swept across the old man, the painting of the old man, Harry corrected himself.

"No." He chuckled. "Though _now_ Harry, it makes so much more sense. I put it down to one of the peculiarities of life." He chuckled again. "So fitting I should have that answered after my time."

"Yes, time." Harry said looking around. He wasn't sure what he thought he was going to get out of talking to the painting of Dumbledore. Of course, the painting, of Dumbledore, of Albus, could be lying.

"I had thought you were myself, with a particularly effective disguise, such intense eyes you have my boy."

"Yourself, travelled back?"

"Via a time turner of some such, but as the hours and days passed I realised it could be no mere magical method of time travel, no time turner can go beyond that."

Harry nodded, filing that piece of information away for another day.

"And then, events occurred and got in the way, you were fortunate to be there, to stop us making a disastrous mistake."

"Indeed." Harry said.

"It must have taken much courage not to see your parents, or those individuals who would become your parents when you were there."

Harry turned away from the painting, instead looking around at the other books, the other paintings in the room, they all seemed to be asleep or from their frames.

"They are part of the web of time, part of my personal past. Meeting you was...unavoidable, but necessary to avoid even more changes to the time stream." Harry paused. "Meeting my parents, even being in the same location could have had disastrous effects on causality and history," He paused again, remembered Ginny's intentions to do just that, and how he'd dealt with her followers, how he'd wanted to _permanently _deal with her. "I wasn't going to even chance that." He finished, thinking of Gideon and Fabian Prewett. They _had_ been his friends there, they'd drunk together, had fun together, talked become friends, he had a small amount of photos, in fact all they'd taken with himself and those two in the frame. They were certainly not something he wanted ending up in Molly Weasley's photo collection. Especially the conversation that would inevitably follow 'if he knew what would happen, why didn't he save them?'. Harry very much doubted she would accept 'everything has its time and everything dies' explanation, nor the justification that it was part of history, nor the guilt that he could use as argument against her; such as saving his own parents in this imagined conversation.

"A very wise view point Harry."

"A great man taught me."

"The man who helped you after the Triwizard Tournament." Albus said, mostly to himself.

"The same" Harry smiled. "And yet different." He exhaled. "Thank you for seeing me again Albus."

"Any time my dear boy, any time."

Harry was somewhat tempted to wander the corridors of Hogwarts, to lose himself in the memories of the past. Maybe to find the third floor corridor, perhaps visit the Room of Requirement, or just walk the corridors.

But as he mused to himself, he realised he didn't want to.

There wasn't any going back. Hogwarts was the same, yet different, and he, he was most certainly different, changed by time, by experience.

You couldn't go back, even with time travel, the past, your personal past, was the past.

"You couldn't do it could you?" Ioan asked as they were sitting around the fire after a delicious Hogwarts meal, it was, just like being back as a student, and yet, not.

"No. I felt like it, but, it's not the same."

"Face it Harry, we're old."

"Older." Harry corrected. "This really is rather fine cognac." He said swirling it around in his glass. They had been provided with a considerable drinks trolley following dinner and tea and coffee.

"Of course you're older Harry, you're lounging in a chair and commenting on how you enjoy fine cognac." Judith said as she sipped her mead, which she also attested was very good. It was a drink that still filled him with some memories of dread.

"You expected I would be out having it off with one of the professors?"

Judith shook her head. "Of course not, not with you sleeping with the mystery woman who's become a lot more than a one nighter, or even an occasional fling."

Harry tried to shrug nonchalantly, but as he was lounging and slightly drunk it didn't really carry very well.

"I thought you might want to find the Slytherins, go and thank them personally." Harry smirked and then added. "I could draw you a map of where to go."

"_You've_ been to the Slytherin common room?" Ioan questioned amazed.

"I've been all sorts of places, some more surprising than others. Mostly on that occasion I just watched Draco Malfoy lie around a bit and talk."

Judith chuckled to herself. "So many things to say."

Harry just glared. "I'll leave fantasies of the pasty git and myself to your perverted imagination, I don't want to think about it, the last thing I want to do is vomit all this cognac into the nearest toilet."

-/

Harry stood with his hands in front of a metal basket that held a fire hovering above the pitch, it was cool verging on cold outside. It was early in the morning, but they had to leave in about 2 hours. They'd already risen and packed everything away. Ioan and Judith were doing a final walk around the area, which interestingly had been cleared overnight, the grass was still very new, but there were hardly any signs of the battle that had occurred the previous day.

But there were some people who wanted answers. McGonagall had decided _not_ to tell the main student body, the teachers or anyone what had occurred yesterday. Neville had told him she had just said there had been an 'dangerous incident in the greenhouses' and that everything would be back to normal in a few days.

However a small group of people had wanted, no, demanded an explanation. Which was why he was out here, on the Quidditch pitch waiting for a certain team to arrive, the team that had helped, in fact greatly assisted yesterday.

Soon they trudged down the hill and saw him standing, waiting for them.

"It's you." One of them said, staring at him.

"Yes, I'm sure I need no introduction." He said, but said his name anyway.

"You were the one with the muggle weapons, fighting the creature." Said another, a girl, young woman.

"It's called a Krynoid, and what I'm going to tell you may shock you, you might call me a deviant, a mad man, insane even. But you've seen it, and you know it's not just some wizarding creation, no matter what McGonagall said, that was a real, living, alien."

The various members of the Slytherin Quidditch team exchanged looks and looked back to Harry.

"How did it become that?" One of them asked.

Harry nodded, mostly to himself, gesturing the benches that had been set up around the fire and began to explain just how the Krynoid came to be as well as warning them, that everything was changing and that they might not be able to ignore it any longer.

McGonagall and Neville met him at the entrance of the castle.

"How'd it go?" Neville asked.

"They didn't try to kill me, as far as meetings go that's always a plus." Harry said.

Neville looked at him trying to work out if he was being serious.

"So will this be the only interruption within my school Mr Potter?"

"I can't make promises Headmistress." Harry said as they walked down the path. "As a friend of mine likes to say the 21st century is when everything changes."

"An astute observation Mr Potter, something I have heard before." McGonagall paused. Harry looked at her as she smiled. "Though that was some time ago."

They continued down the path in relative silence.

"Everything packed?"

"Even the bag of shell casings someone thought to pickup for us." Judith patted the side of the Defender.

"You'll write occasionally Harry? We should keep in contact." Neville asked.

"Yes, of course, I will, yes." Harry said quickly. "I didn't mean to not, you know, being at school, then wars and then leaving and..." Then my ex-girlfriend starts calls me a deviant and mad bastard, tried to kill me, she escapes travels through time, I go and have to stop her... Harry just smiled, instead of saying all of that. "Some complicated stuff got in the way."

"And anything of an unearthly nature I'll be sure to contact you first." Neville joked, though McGonagall bristled at the mention of 'unearthly'.

Harry offered his hand to Neville who grabbed it firmly shaking it.

"Minerva McGonagall, it's been a pleasure." Harry said as he mock saluted to the Headmistress.

"Mr Potter, now, if you could get that monstrosity of a muggle vehicle out of here, perhaps, Mr Longbottom we can get back to work and you can explain to Pomona how we have _lost_ a greenhouse."

"Yes Minerva." Neville said. McGonagall looked down at him. "I mean Professor." He said quickly.

"If you're to work here Mr...Neville then we should use each other's names, do you not think?"

Neville nodded with a smile.

Harry got into the driver's side.

"You sure this is going to start."

"We're on a slope, if it doesn't we should be able to roll start it." Ioan said.

"I like the should in that sentence." Harry muttered.

Turning the key the engine made another sick noise, and then turned over, very roughly. Releasing the handbrake he eased the Defender forward and allowed them to roll down the hill as they gained momentum the engine took on a much better noise.

"Ioan, you're brilliant." Harry said as he did a U-turn back towards the station.

-/

A/N:

_This is quite possibly my longest chapter yet, and there wasn't really anywhere that was a good cut point to cut this into two chapters. _

_I've had this idea sitting around for a while; Krynoid at Hogwarts, and this (timing wise) is the last place I could place it. _

_It's in the latter part of 2004, it needs to be here to begin the introduction of various alien concepts to the wizarding world._

_I don't like to create characters if they're just going to stand there and be a little bit ineffectual, which is why the Defence professor doesn't turn up, is even mentioned or even suggested at a gender. _

_I also really didn't want to write any 'here's Harry, back at Hogwarts' scenes between Harry and whichever professors, which is part of the reason why McGonagall is the only Professor during all this who's around. Of course it also allows me to write stuff from McGonagall's point of view, which is always interesting._

_I suppose I should address the 'technology doesn't work in Hogwarts' thing, as, Harry drives up to Hogwarts, I've got them using radio transmitters and other stuff like that. It's never really defined what is meant by "technology", I've basically just read it as someone testes something within Hogwarts and it didn't work (I like to imagine it was post-WWII) but since then technology has moved on. With the right preparations and considerations there's work arounds. _


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter 32**

"You know, normal people would be doing their shopping, visiting relatives, eating Christmas cake." Judith said as they pulled up to another disused facility, with a well maintained fence line and what they had to come as regulation cameras, razor wire and other security arrangements.

"As you've said Judith." Harry muttered. "And do you really want to be out beating back the shoppers for that last bottle of perfume, fancy electronic gadget or ugly tie with matching vomit coloured socks?" Harry said with a wistful smile.

Judith looked at him. "Are you secretly dreaming of socks? How wonderfully fetishistic of you."

Harry chuckled. "Nah. Just thinking of Dumbledore, he did love his socks, and lemon drops."

"And masterful plans, cryptic decisions and paintings." Judith said as they both got out of the Defender, while it _appeared_ deserted there was still someone manning the gate and was wondering over to them a cautious hand on his weapon.

"You did some investigating while we were at Hogwarts." Harry said, though he framed it as an almost rhetorical question.

Judith didn't comment. "So how should we play this, lost tourist, lovers out for a quickie, or–"

"I might just stun him I think," Harry paused. "Since you got annoyed with the last bloke." Harry muttered, some people had particularly tricky minds and hypnotism, especially as he'd had to maintain the silly fiction that he and Judith were amateur archaeologists searching for the 'legendary' burial site of Qui Quae Quod.

That was what he got accepting her challenge that he could sell any story she came up with.

It was another old warehouse. Judith looked over to Harry. "So what are you expecting to find here?"

"You're asking this _now?_ Again?"

"You're looking for technology, I thought we got enough alien technology in our lives."

"I want a certain type of technology." Harry said as he tapped his wand on the door locks for the warehouse and walked in. "And this is what I've been looking for."

Judith followed him in. "Most normal people wouldn't go looking for Daleks for Christmas."

"Maybe I want to spend my Christmas with a Dalek."

"Isn't that a song?" Judith mused out loud, though Harry didn't really hear here.

He'd got to get his hands, quite literally on a Dalek, several, whilst in the 1970s, but since returning, aside from that very dead one that had been at the bottom of the ocean there hadn't been much.

It wasn't as though the Intrusion and Countermeasures Group needed them, they were more or less caught up between the ICMG and UNIT with Torchwood sticking their noses in also, and who knew whichever other defunct security services like ISIS lurking in the shadows wanting to get their hands on the tech.

And he wanted it before they stuck their hands in to take a piece of the technology pie.

Rereading the information about the so called 'Shoreditch Incident' and recalling what Ace and the Doctor had said, there should be a load of Dalek tech lying around, UNIT didn't have it when he was in the 1970s, despite UNIT being the ICMG's successor.

Judith looked around the warehouse, it was, much as the other warehouses had been, with the smell of dust and old things. Like a library of technology and weaponry. Harry probably loved the smell, it was like his house and garage, only with less of a scent of engine oil, energy weapon and spell burn. She rather liked those smells.

Harry ran his hands along the shelves, they were all showing signs of dust and having not been touched for years. There had been a manifest of this building, all with code numbers and nothing much else, so totally useful, if you actually had something to match it against.

He didn't, it had been _boring_ enough just getting the building locations, trawling through even more information to get tidbits of information about what lay within these things would have sent him batty.

He turned down another corridor and jumped slightly; coming face to face with one of WOTAN's 'war machines'. He laughed.

"You have..." Harry shook his head, they really were as cumbersome as the photos suggested.

"You're laughing to yourself Harry, that's a sign of megalomania." Judith's voice drifted through the high shelving.

"No I'm laughing at something."

"More early 17th century Tereleptil design?" Judith asked curiously as she walked around a corner. "No." She said answering her own question.

"Get a mind controlling computer to design something and this is what happens." Harry said it and Judith.

"Instead get a megalomaniac in a wheelchair to design something and you end up with something that looks like a breast fetishist went loose in the kitchen?" Judith asked.

"I'll let you do the talking if we come across a live breast-inspired kitchen-utensil loving killing machine filled with bubbling hate." Harry called backwards to Judith as he continued his wandering along the shelving.

"How can I do that if you're shielding me from its gunfire?" Judith shouted.

"With great..." Harry paused as he rounded a corner and came face to face with said objects they were mocking. "Difficulty." He murdered to himself.

They'd set up the tent, which was basically just far larger version of the expandable bags, supported by four extendable posts that could be transported in the back of the Defender.

He hadn't yet got it to the size he was happy with, at the moment it wasn't as big as a conventional wizarding tent, nor as well equipped, but you could walk in, or drag things, like a dead Dalek or 4 into it.

He didn't like spending too much time within the tent-bag thing, it had been slightly freaky testing it when one side of the supports had collapsed, he'd managed to blast a hole out after the entrance slipped out of view. But it had been a slightly worrying time, especially given the fact he couldn't have apparated out, given he had been perfecting them at his house.

Though the benefits of having an apparition 'dead zone' out weighed any of the downsides.

Ducking back out he carefully maneuvered the other bits of Dalek technology, two bits looked especially interesting, from what Ace had described it looked like the time controller, albeit smashed and not working, together with the other tech he'd salvaged it's certainly be interesting.

"You done, pilfering the great British establishment?" Judith asked wondering to him. "These looked interesting." She said passing him several rolled plans. "Well" She started. "Interesting to someone fascinated by breast-obsessed kitchen-wisk-fancying aliens."

Harry exhaled, he knew if he ever came across a live Dalek he'd end up with Judith's commentary in his head. He wondered as he pulled out a smaller piece of paper that seemed to describe what was in the tube, if, thinking of them as breast-kitchen obsessed beings was better than 'bubbling pots of hate'.

"Interesting." Harry murmured to himself, it was from the British War Office. "Something to look into later I think." Judith said looking back towards the doors.

"Company?" Harry asked, he hadn't heard anything, but that didn't mean that nothing was present. For all they knew there could be ghosts in this building, or spirits, or just generally invisible aliens who'd lost their purple cloaks.

Judith smiled mysteriously at him. "No, I'm just trying to hurry you up. You're really paranoid Harry."

Harry resisted to urge to punch her. "Anything else in your wonderings?"

"A painting here and there, some old Magpie electronics, a Spitfire, nothing all that interesting."

"A Spitfire?" Harry repeated as he packed up the tent, pulling the straps together so it could be carried.

"Important?" Judith asked. Then she looked at him hard. "Leaving aside your fascination with fast things with engines."

"Everything here's important, though useful is another thing." Harry said looking around. "I think leave now, while I've got what I wanted."

Judith patted him on the back. "You're learning Harry." She said, satisfied.

"Not that I care, but what have I learnt?"

"Not to want to look into everything and take it just in case, that's how hording starts."

"And I haven't really got the room for an airfield."

"Not with your monitoring network across your fields, no." Judith mused as they walked out of the doors.

"Which is useful."

"Is, or will be?" She asked as he re-locked the doors.

"Both."

-/

Harry spun the wheel of the Lotus and changed gear, despite being, very late in fact on Christmas Day the streets of Cardiff were busy. He'd had a rather pleasant day, very pleasant in fact.

Daphne had visited, practically on Christmas Eve and departed just as the sun had begun to rise on the day, though _technically_ they'd spent Christmas Day together.

Though she had "things to attend to", Harry assumed it was family things, but he could never be sure with here. She did linger, wondering what he would do.

He did wonder, for a little bit, if the Doctor or Magister would show up, but no such visits had occurred. Soon, he'd be seeing the Doctor, soon their pasts would collide. Likely making his life more complicated. Especially considering it was his past and the Doctor's present and future.

He still wasn't sure if he would meet his friend, breaking into the Doctor's soon the be present life. 2004, soon the be 2005 in less than a week, _then_ everything changes.

Then his life becomes contemporaneous with the Doctor's but not the Doctor with him, the Doctor would go on, meet Rose, and have all their adventures together, and then meet Jack Harkness; grifter, conman, (former) Time Agent and who knew what else.

Harry suspected that Jack didn't know some of the time, he had, at least obliquely said he had some missing memories.

Speaking of the devil in World War II clothing...

Harry drove up to Roald Dahl Plass, where Jack was waiting mysteriously, or maybe that was just the effect of the biting wind that was flapping his coat around.

Getting out of the car he patted to make sure his gun and wand were where he'd put them and wrapped a scarf around his neck.

"Nice scarf." Jack complimented, with a smile.

Harry snorted, it was his Tinclavic scarf that the Doctor had given him, several years ago, it was still as it was; new. A pity so many of the memories formed during his school times also still as fresh. Much like the wind.

"You drag me out here on a freezing Christmas night and that's all I get. No wonder you're out here being mysterious Jack-" Harry's mock complaining was cut short as Jack enveloped him in a hug.

"You know" He whispered into Harry's ear. "I could warm you up much better than that scarf could, really heat things up."

Harry felt Jack's hands wander down his back. "Drifting hands Jack." He warned.

Jack breathed in, through his nose and then stepped away from Harry giving him a look. "You've had sex," He paused and then added "recently."

"Can anyone join this conversation or is this a private talk about sex in the middle of the plass?"

"Suzie Costello, meet-" Jack's introductions were cut off.

"Harry Potter." Harry said holding up a hand in greeting and then shoving it back inside his coat.

"LPI? Jack are you bringing home toy boys again?"

"Meet Mr Potter, from the League of Paranormal Investigations."

"We cover the crap UNIT and Torchwood doesn't, plus the stuff it wouldn't want to." Harry surmised.

"And occasionally temporal criminals bent on altering the timeline and murdering anyone in their way." Jack grinned at him. "An ex of yours I seem to recall."

"Thanks Jack." Harry glared at him, he didn't need reminding of Ginny.

"We've found another of them Jack." Suzie Costello brought out an evidence bag from case she was carrying.

"This is why you're here Harry Potter, a search of the UNIT database showed up a name Thascalos, according to the database, you should be contacted if there's any trouble."

Harry was silent for a moment, he suspected what was in the bag. "Was there a name who added this information?"

"James Alistair Bowman, mean something?" Jack asked, staring at him.

"What sort of trouble? Aside from shrunken bodies?" Harry said.

"He's good." Costello commented.

"People turning up, not remembering a thing, hypnotism, it's something you like to break out isn't it Harry? A specialty of yours." Jack said, his questions almost leading.

Harry remained silent, instead looking around the plass.

"You've never said where you learnt it."

"You've not told me a lot of things about you Jack either." Harry replied as he looked around the plass. It was doubtful there would be a horsebox, 1970s computer bank or a grandfather clock anywhere around here. "There's plenty of things you know that you haven't told me about, I think if we knew everything about one another then life would be very boring."

"And murder livens things up doesn't it?" Jack asked.

"Murder can be justified Jack, it just depends why you're doing it." Harry countered back.

"Have you got any good reasons?" Jack asked, Harry shrugged.

"Anything connecting them?" Harry asked as he wondered if he could cast a warming spell on himself, Jack seemed to be immune to the freezing winter wind and the Costello woman was watching him like a hawk.

"You can come down to the hub." Jack said after a moment's thought.

"Finally I get to see your lair." Harry replied with a grin.

"Well." Harry said as the door rolled open to reveal Torchwood Three.

Jack had already swanned over to work station.

"Well." Harry said again as he walked forward, gazing up at the water covered monolith that when down into the bowels of Torchwood Three.

**Torchwood** was written on tiles on one far wall.

"Well." Harry said as he walked over to the central area.

"You've said that three times Harry Potter." Jack drawled with a smile.

"Not seen something like this before?" Suzie Costello asked.

Harry snorted. "I've seen whole worlds inside a small box, castles beyond your wildest dreams and crazy bitches who wanted to tear my throat out with their bare hands and re-write causality."

"We've all had girlfriends like that." Costello said with a sly shrug.

"So, what'd'ya think?"

"Whoever designed this place liked the 'factory chique'." Harry said tapping his hands on the hand rail.

"I'm sorry?" Costello asked looking at him.

"And this is what you tame the beast." Jack tensed, but Harry continued. "The Torchwood rift, spewing its temporal goodness into the world."

"Like some massive temporal bukkake across Wales." Jack winked at him.

"That's a disturbing mental image, especially since I've flown through said slurry."

Costello shook her head. "It's been like this from day one."

"Sexual innuendo, flirty, arse grabbing, occasional flights with death and then down the pub for a pint?" Harry replied.

"You've worked with him before?"

Harry nodded. "And I've regularly done that, well the last three, but that was the 1970s and a more professional organisation than Torchwood."

"The first three's Jack all the way."

"Hey. I'm right here, and your CiC" Jack proclaimed. "A little respect."

Harry put up his hand. "I'm not part of your organisation" Harry paused. "So, man in the coat lording it over your minions, what have you got?"

Jack grinned at him. "The victims that were all..." He looked to Suzie.

"Minimised."

Harry raised an eyebrow at the term, not that Magister had ever used a term to describe what his weapon did. It wasn't really something they'd discussed in any real length. He knew peripherally that Magister had used it, when he'd been working with UNIT.

"Lived and worked in Cardiff."

"All their lives?" Harry asked after a moment's pause.

Jack typed something into his computer, Harry stared at it for a moment, it seemed to be running some unfathomable operating system, with a lot of swirling pulsing stuff in the background. He briefly wondered what sort of desktop theme they were running here, and on a tangent how they dealt with the water that was dribbling down the monolith.

Harry opened his mouth and then closed it, forgetting momentarily that Judith wasn't there to mock him about his 'dribbling monolith' mental comment.

"Hmmm..." Harry cautiously leaned on the guard rail, it made a noise, but didn't seem like it was going to break off an allow him to plummet into the likely freezing cold water in the middle of an industrial-influenced hub of design

"Any other linking factors?"

"Except they all liked going out drinking and partying." Costello commented.

"Making them pliable and more persuasive." Harry pondered to himself. He wondered what Magister, _if_ it was him, though evidence so far suggested it was him, what was he up to here? In Cardiff.

"Jack pull up a map of Cardiff, including where the" Harry paused, briefly looking back to the table where the evidence bag was. "Bodies were found, overlay any nightclubs and bars, and then also add in where they've lived for the past 10 years."

"Yes sir." Jack grinned. "I like this Harry, you giving the orders, me obeying, it's like a new position for our relationship."

Harry inhaled deeply and gazed up at the very high ceiling while he quietly wondered to himself how, when they were redeveloping the plass they somehow managed to miss an entire secret underground lair.

"So what do you think of the hub?" Suzie asked as Harry walked a short distance away from Jack.

"Hub? So, how come you're not off enjoying Christmas night?" Harry asked her.

She shrugged. "No one around who deserves spending time with and you?"

"I...had a nice morning and a quiet day." Suzie Costello didn't say anything to his statement.

"Alright, Mr Potter, I've enacted your _orders_, now what do you want of me?"

"And a bit of death and murder to finish my day off." Harry said pushing himself away from the barrier.

"Spices life up." Costello said with a smile behind him.

"Death or murder?"

"Murder's more interesting." Costello said from behind him.

"Here; your map is prepared." Jack said bashing the keyboard. The computer made some weird noises, but the blue swirling background continued to swirl.

Harry wondered if he should ask Jack if all the monitors had been bought on the cheap, as blue seemed to be the dominant colour.

"All within a few miles of the rift, I see where ya going here, you think they're all connected to the rift." Jack said looking at him with a new respect.

"I'm not just a pretty face." Harry commented and then realised he shouldn't have thrown that to Jack.

"Not just a pretty face, one smoking body and–"

He was cut off by Suzie Costello. "Can you keep your flirting out of this."

"Jack, keeping his cock in his pants?" Harry arched an eyebrow, though noticed Costello smile out of the corner of his eye.

"Which bars were those bodies from, and any others you've encountered obviously." Harry asked, Jack stepped slightly more closely to him and typed something into the keyboard, the screen flashed and the pulsing in the background continued. Harry didn't want to think about what else was pulsing in the background beside him.

"So, that leaves us a few bars, what do you people need with that many places to drink?"

"Harry lives down in the South West." Jack explained to Suzie.

"Oh..." There was a tone of realisation in her voice.

"What? Just because I don't like to go out and drink until a spew?"

"You're missing a lot Harry, teenage years and all that." Costello said.

"Sorry, missed that, bit of a case of psychopathic murder, and general death of a large selection of friends and family to deal with." Harry bit back a little viciously.

For a few moments he hub was silent, aside from the water dribbling down into the pit below, and whatever noises the computers were making.

Jack broke the silence, stepping even closer to him. Harry could just about feel his body heat, maybe he'd have to do something extreme to get Jack to back off. Maybe kick him in the nuts...actually, Jack would probably take that as foreplay.

"We can discount a few of those, they've been closed for the past few nights with power troubles, the last major rift activity jostled the power lines around a bit." He tapped at the computer again. "That leaves us those."

"Enough for us each to search about 3 clubs." Costello surmised.

"Good. Well I think we can manage that." Harry deliberately stepped back into Jack. "You're mighty close there Jack." He said, trying to sound oblivious to Jack's invasion of his personal space.

"Just tryin' to keep you warm Harry Potter."

"I'll get a blanket Jack, or maybe I'll eat something, or do something else."

"You don't wanna snuggle with a captain?" He asked as he slipped on his coat.

"Not the way my broom swings Jack." Harry said following Suzie toward the exit.

"Who said anything about swinging? Just a bit of a ride!" Jack called after him.

Harry walked through the club, the music inside the club was beyond loud, with the sub-frequencies thundering in his chest. Harry wondered if the club's patrons knew they could get the same sensations going toe to toe with a several dozen puffskeins that had been hyped up on the mineral salts extruded by a salivating klakluk.

The lasers that punctuated the club along with the strobe light made the pulsing crowd seem stilted, like time was jumping, out of phase, were it not for the music, which, whoever was producing it had had a real go with the harmonic oscillator and which _was_ at what he assumed was the correct rate and not jumping as it would if he were trapped in an alternating time field.

Harry wondered once more if he'd missed something in his early life being here, jumping, pulsing to the music, instead, here now, he was worried he was in a temporal event as the strobes started again, fracturing the crowd. One thing though, which was useful, if he needed to start firing off spells, it was highly unlikely anyone would notice; the lasers were the perfect cover. Which was quite likely why _he_ had chosen clubs, or at least part of the reason. Were one to remove people from the streets it would be far more noticeable.

Harry hadn't come up with a concise reason _why_ Magister would be doing this, though some of his other plans had been somewhat unfathomable at the time too, so, he wasn't sure.

Harry also wasn't sure which incarnation that Magister would be in, the one he knew him most of all in; from the 1970s, it somehow seemed unlikely, this 'scene' as Costello had called it was not where he imagined _him_ fitting in, nor, the man, scarred and burnt, when he had met him back before Bill and Fleur's wedding, he didn't think he would be here, that left two possibilities, a future incarnation he didn't know about...

"Or someone else." He said out loud to himself, even though he couldn't hear anything above the music. Someone whom he'd only had described to him.

Not for the first time Harry wondered if the Doctor had deliberately put his name in UNIT's information, relating to the Master, maybe to punish him for his association with 'the Master', maybe to make him _responsible_. But then, it had never really been the Doctor who had an issue with his association with Magister, it had been some of his companions. Even the Brigadier was willing to let him be.

If anything though, the Doctor would have put his name down because he would know what to do, should the Doctor not be there himself.

Harry even knew how to _kill_ a Time Lord, if push came to shove, well he knew at least _one_ of the ways, one of the more vicious, bloody ways to do so.

Harry was starting to hope that no one was in here, so he could leave, he equally hoped the other location chosen for him wasn't somewhere with such an amazingly loud speaker system.

But then the music changed tone and speed, the music flattened out to one long droning noise and the lights brightened, blowing out his vision; having acclimated to the darkness-punctuated light it was like looking into the eye of a star.

But as he squinted he saw something, someone.

Years ago, the Doctor had said that Anceyln, a man from another universe had recognised him, not by his face, but his manner, that betrayed him. The Doctor never said _who_ he was in this other universe.

Harry'd had some experience of knowing that, with the Doctor though he always knew him, but he was a friend, whom he had known most of his life.

Magister though, was far more deceptive, harder to know, really, know, he was, in more ways than one a 'Master of disguise'.

In the few seconds of squinting glare he saw someone across the club, he didn't look like his friend, but he had the standing, the _manner_ of his friend, associate, conversation partner.

Looking around Harry realised he'd never get through to the other side of the club where an emergency exit door was.

Harry burst out into the freezing Cardiff night and ran around to the other side of the building.

He grinned to himself as he saw a figure walking, almost sauntering down the narrow street.

"STOP!" He shouted, taking in another breath of the freezing night air. The figure didn't stop moving.

Harry started to run and then swore, to himself and judged the distance and hoped that the mist or steam or whatever was just that and that the rift energy wouldn't rip him into constituent molecules.

-/

His eyes widened as a man appeared, some distance away, obscured by the steam from the 'clubs' in the lower reaches of the streets. He appeared to be pointing two weapons at him.

He had appeared from nothing, the air rushing away from him in an implosion.

"When I said stop, I meant you." The man's voice was familiar. "Time Lord."

Harry added the Time Lord bit, just so Magister wouldn't try something unwise. From what he recalled of what the Doctor had said when he and Peri had visited, this incarnation of 'the Master' was less than stable.

"And who might I be addressing?" Harry saw through the steam and mist Magister remove a long black shape with a bulbous head.

He motioned with his wand, muttering a soft _Expelliarmus, _it flew into this hand and he briefly juggled it, his wand and his gun.

It was...oddly shaped for a weapon, he was fairly sure that Jack would've had some words to say about what he could do with it.

Harry silently cursed to himself, the fact he'd even thought that meant he'd spent too much time around the rogue Time Agent.

Slipping the weapon into a pocket he stepped through the steam towards his old friend.

Looking at him now, with clarity, unlike the Doctor, whom he had seen and known across regenerations, he saw a lot less of his friend in this man.

Even in his extremely injured, almost _burnt_, charred appearance, that singular time he had met him, there was something of man he had known, but here, now, he had changed.

There was something deeply _wrong_ here.

"So, it is you." Harry said after a moment.

Magister stepped forward a broad smile on his face. "Ah, my dear Harry Potter." He chuckled softly. "It has been some time, for me." He continued to chuckle to himself. Harry continued to hold his weapons, both pointed at the man's chest. _Supposedly_ you could kill a Time Lord by stabbing them in _both_ hearts, preventing regeneration, _supposedly_ anyway. A gun and crushing spell to the hearts would theoretically also do the trick.

"It seems the Doctor has swayed you in your opinion of me, hmmm?"

Harry lowered his wand and replaced it in his pocket. "The Doctor has always been firm that my friendship with you was of my own choice, his travelling companions are another story." Harry said lightening his tone slightly.

"So, I am to be trusted Harry?" He stepped closer, had goosebumps not been on his skin from the cold night they would have risen up. Something...something he couldn't place was _not_ _right_ with this man, who he had at one point thought of as a close friend.

"Enough." Harry answered, fighting the urge to take a step back as Magister...no...Harry thought to himself, this man, wasn't Magister, but he needed to know. "So, Magister" Harry paused, the man before him twitched, ever so slightly. "What brings you to Cardiff?"

"I usually prefer to be referred to as the Master, Harry." He said in a soft tone, laying a soft gloved hand on his shoulder and then walked back around him, looking up at the sky. Harry patted his pocket, in the time _the Master_ had been close to him, he'd picked his pocket for his big black...whatever it was.

"A tissue compression eliminator." The Master said turning the weapon over in his hand and then chucked it at Harry.

Harry caught it effortlessly. "Still the fine Quidditch player I see."

"This is what you used on the people from the club." Harry said in a neutral tone.

"Ever perceptible my dear Potter." He chuckled again. "I am surprised the ever imaginative Doctor did not inform you of this."

The Master watched him, seemingly wanting affirmation of the Doctor's knowledge of him.

It was something Magister never seemed to **want** in the past. The Doctor and he, in the past were many things, friends, rivals, annoyances, but this man...something about him.

"He may have mentioned it." Harry said vaguely. The _Master_ smiled to himself.

"So, _Master_" Harry drawled in his best drawling voice. "Why are you here?"

"This _rift_ in space and time provides the perfect filter, but it needs a biological process to make it more _compatible_."

"For what?" Harry repeated, unnecessarily, as the Master seemed to be talking to himself, or maybe quietly ranting, he wasn't sure. Harry wondered if he should just shoot the man and damn the timelines.

"I have recently acquired an energy source for my TARDIS and..." he trailed off, looking briefly to Harry and then looking down at himself.

"Oh..." Harry said. "I should have realised. The Xeraphin."

"The naive Doctor has informed you of our recent encounters, I wonder what else he has told you of me?" A predatory look cross the Master's face and Harry disengaged the safety his gun.

"Would you harm your old friend Harry?" He asked, gazing at him.

"You taught me _Master_, don't try that on me." Harry said, meeting the man's gaze.

The Master chuckled again.

"I think it's time to leave Master. Cardiff is not a safe place for ill-equipped individuals."

"Very well Harry, I shall bow to your greater knowledge and experience. This time." Harry stepped back and allowed the Master to pass and looked down the street, as he did so he saw Suzie Costello walking across looking around.

Harry turned quickly to follow.

The Master's TARDIS was standing in front of a set of shops, it was a column, seemingly made out of sandstone.

"Hardly incongruous." Harry commented.

The Master raised an eyebrow. "And the Doctor's joke of a TARDIS is? My, my, Mr Potter, I did not think you so judgmental." Harry wasn't sure if he meant his comment or in general.

"Harvesting whatever from humans isn't something I thought you were into, that's more the Rani's forte."

The mention of the Rani seemed to take the Master by surprise. "Fascinating, the dear Doctor has told you all about our old academy days." Then he muttered to himself. "The Rani...hmmm..."

Then someone with an American accent shouted out his name.

"You are a popular person Harry Potter." The Master said, a door opening in the side of the column. "I could show you time and space, more wonders than the Doctor would ever desire to."

The idea of stepping into this man's TARDIS made his skin crawl, though he still couldn't place what was wrong.

"You'd better go, Master..." Harry said, looking back down the street, Jack was running at full pelt, with Suzie following. "But..."

"Yes?" He asked looking at him.

"What happened to you?" Harry asked, almost pleading, softly, the unspoken question of 'what happened to my friend'.

"A reprieve granted despite meddling by the Doctor, not once but twice, despite the Doctor's meddling." The Master said with vitriol.

Harry blinked slowly and then removed the tissue compression eliminator from his pocket and held it for the Master.

"Keep it, Harry. I can always build another." He said with a cruel smile.

"Farewell." Harry said as the door closed on the column and the TARDIS faded with less noise and grandeur than the Doctor's.

Several second later Jack rushed up, and then looked at his wrist strap.

"Evidence of a major temporal dematerialisation here." Jack fixed him with a look. "Who was that?"

"The remains of an old friend, one whom I hope to see again earlier in time."

"What?" Costello said. "I saw you with a guy, in black."

"Yes, time" Harry paused looking up at the sky sadly. "Time passes for different people, different ways."

"Harry? Are you alright?" Jack looked at him, a worried look playing over his face.

"Not really. But I will be."

-/

Harry leaned back in his chair and poured another glass of brandy, it had been a gift from Jack, from the vaults of Torchwood for helping out.

The afternoon sun was beating down outside and here, at his house, it was far warmer than Cardiff.

Boxing Day, and there was nothing, no alien invasions, no one shooting at him, just the sounds of the universe playing through the laptop, a relay from his monitoring network hidden amongst the fields and paddocks around his house.

The noise of the universe however was punctuated at that moment by the wheeze groaning noise of a time space ship. Harry pushed himself out of his chair and wondered around, and there, next to the Lotus was a blue police box.

"Ah, Harry, how good to see you. The old girl had particular problems landing in this year. Rather busy temporal events wise, she gets a bit flustered."

Harry just stepped forward and hugged him, it was good, to see him, the Doctor, in his frilly shirt and cape and everything. From when his friends, both Time Lords were still sane, well one of them continued to be sane, the other...

"Have you been drinking Harry old chap?" The Doctor asked in all seriousness as he stepped away seemingly surprised considering the many times he'd gone out with the UNIT guys to the local pub.

Harry stared at the Doctor. "Brandy Doctor."

"Brandy? Hmm..." The Doctor stroked his chin. "That won't go well with the meal I've brought along a late Christmas meal, but I have a delightful red Harry, you must try it."

-/

"Harry." The Doctor was watching him carefully, they'd finished a rather nice meal and returned to where Harry had been, sitting outside looking to the edges of his property.

"Hmm?"

"Is everything quite alright?"

His expression must have said something to the Doctor. "Ah, I see."

"It's a loaded question Doctor." Harry said after a while.

"Look...you don't have to, I mean I..." The Doctor seemed genuinely flustered for a moment.

"I met the Master recently."

"The Master, I thought you knew him as-"

Harry cut the Doctor off. "Yes, but he'd changed."

"Another regeneration?" The Doctor pondered.

"Something like that. But he'd changed."

"He always was a rogue." The Doctor rubbed his chin, thinking.

"Yes, but an interesting, fascinating to know rogue, this...man He was different."

"Harry, we Time Lords, we change, you, perhaps even better than me know that."

There was something of a sadness, or a longing in his voice. Harry wondered if he wanted to know how many more bodies, how many regenerations he had ahead of him. He was positively young, compared to his future, the future that Harry had seen, the future that was swiftly catching up with Harry, with everyone. He didn't pretend to understand how the Doctor whose future and present were catching up with his present could be from a time when the Time Lords were gone and yet here, the Doctor had his future, his TARDIS and if he wanted could return to Gallifrey, for him the Time Lords _were_ still around they were the annoying overbearing non-interfering overlords.

"Sometimes it gives me a headache, knowing what I know."

The Doctor chuckled. "That's the complexities of time travel, old Blinovitch knew that quite well."

The Doctor looked at him again holding his gaze. "And, Harry, when we do change, a part of us continues to live on inside." He tapped his head. "The scarecrow, he's in here, they visit, in my dreams sometimes." He said softly. "The Master has many facets, the man, whomever he may be, whatever has happened, there would still have been a trace of the man you know."

"Perhaps." Harry replied.

Then the Doctor stood up. "Now, Harry you must show me these cars you've got, they look most interesting." The Doctor rubbed his hands with a gleam in his eye.

It was fairly late when it came to Harry and the Doctor standing in front of the TARDIS.

Harry had to admit, this had been the best boxing day in a long time, he'd said as much to the Doctor.

"Well." The Doctor said stuffing his hands into his pockets, briefly not sure what to say.

"Look after yourself Doctor."

"Harry Potter, I don't do anything but. I should be saying that to you." Harry smiled gently.

"Maybe we both need to take care of ourselves, we only have one life, no matter the regenerations one has." Harry replied.

The Doctor smiled warmly. "Quite right Harry, sound advice, especially for a Time Lord."

"Well..." Goodbyes were always the hardest, in the past he and the Doctor never seemed to have the luxury of time, sort of ironic really.

"Visit again, will you?"

"Perhaps. If the old girl can land, the early 21st century seems to give her a bit of indigestion."

"It's when everything changes." Harry said.

"You've said that before Harry, to the Brigadier, as I recall."

"It's the truth. But I shouldn't say more." Harry tapped his nose.

The Doctor nodded and stepped into the inner reaches of the TARDIS.

The noise of the dimensions being parted as the blue police box faded from existence filled his ears, and for a moment his heart as it disappeared from view.

-/

_A/N:_

_I know this is __**another **__2004 set chapter. 2005 and future years are difficult because they involve even more timey-wimey complexities. _

_I also know I've done the timey-wimey thing with the Third Doctor turning up again, but that's still the Doctor __visiting__ Harry. It's him dropping in on Harry's adventures, not the other way around in the present at least._

_But next chapter will most definitely be set in 2005 and will feature some of the Auton's attempt on Earth, it may even feature the Doctor and Rose._

_Harry meets the Master after __**Time-Flight**__ and before __**Mark of the Rani**__. _

_Which means the Master Harry meets __is not__ the Master that is described to him by the Doctor and Peri in Chapter 08 (as that chapter for the Doctor and Peri occurs after __**Mark of the Rani**__). _

_This is Anthony Ainley version of the Master, whom I've held off from including until now. _

_Early on I didn't want to write him because of all the possession baggage that went with him and didn't really work with Harry fighting Voldemort._

_It's taken me to now to work out how to write him and Harry effectively without detracting from the Delgado Master that Harry's come to know. _

_The Torchwood stuff is obviously before Series 1 of Torchwood. I wanted to use Suzie Costello because she's a character who doesn't get a lot of screen time, and it's easier to write just two Torchwood characters rather than adding in Owen (whom I'm not sure is part of Torchwood yet)._

_There shouldn't be as long a wait for chapter 33 which I have mostly written so I hope to post it within a week or two. _


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33**

The blocks of stone seemingly were just part of the various ports and quays along the Thames riverbank.

To any muggle that was all they appeared to be; blocks of what on first glance might be sandstone.

But they were two distinct blocks of stone, though what sort was harder to discern, even though she had been here many times past, Daphne still wasn't sure what sort of stone that had been bewitched to behave as it did.

Removing the invoice from a pocket she held it up to the stone and brushed it gently against one of the stones.

The wax seal was according to the agents that produced the invoice impregnated with a special formula that the stones recognised.

She knew what that was; blood.

The stone pulsed gently and almost shuffled, poised, awaiting the next part of the entrance procedure.

Daphne stretched our her hand, her palm flat and placed it against the stone, very gently and then snatched it away, an almost biting sensation as the stone validated and confirmed her existence, that her presence was authorised, or something.

The agents who operated this port had implied that were the stones not 'fed' they were liable to go 'out looking for food'. Supposedly they were responsible for several street-walkers' deaths, prior to taming of their enchantments.

That is, _if_ they were enchanted, there were some rumours that the stones had been found somewhere in the South of England in the 1970s.

According to her and her father's associates who managed part of their interests there was a different agreement to enter prior to the agents implementation of this system.

The stones shuffled apart, slowly allowing her path of entry to the secluded area.

While still on the Thames it was a short distance from the nearest Greenland Pier that the muggles used.

Though, as Harry said "sometimes people reject things they refuse to understand, or don't want to try understand."

Harry...Daphne found herself pausing, mentally as the stones continued to move to allow her free passage.

They had progressed beyond _just_ sex. Sometimes they had conversations before and after. Occasionally they 'went out' and didn't have sex.

Though she, nor he had called it, what they had a relationship, but it was clear, one early morning after much of the night spent intimately, barely a week into the new year, that they had moved beyond simply having great, passionate wonderful, sex.

Although, neither of them had classified what it was they had now.

Her sister had practically jumped the first wizard that crossed her path, drawn by ideals of family and the graces she thought were expected of her.

What had followed was an annulment, agreed upon by both parties, the wizard whom both she and Harry had been at school with had been quite amicable, considering the circumstances. Quite unlike his childhood years.

But then, school and the times between childhood and adulthood changed one.

Daphne pushed those thoughts to the edges of her mind and focused on the tasks at hand, the stones had finished moving, though were still pulsing softly, almost as though they were eager to see her stand there and be devoured.

Daphne moved on past them, it would not be done to ascribe thoughts to charmed rocks, _if_ that was all they were.

Though, as Harry often alluded to the world, no, the _universe_ was more complicated than anyone imagined.

The schooner was sitting along side one other ship, both ships belonged to the shipping agents who also had owned and run the port since there had been a trade for such things.

Though earlier in their business life they would have had a fleet of sailing ships, just as the muggles had.

But as the muggles do, they had made things brutally efficient, something many wizards and witches had failed to understand.

But, certain ingredients could not be transported within muggle craft, either those aeroplanes, things like Harry could fly, which was a strange idea for her to imagine him doing. Although with his fascinations with such conveyances as the four wheeled variety she should not have been surprised by such a revelation.

Nor could they be placed within the iron cuboid containers.

Certain items required care, the calm that a sailing vessel brought.

Some things could be detected by the muggles _machines_ or were damaged by their machines and handling procedures. Others simply combusted, or made the iron containers combust, melt or simply disintegrate.

Those occasions had been lessons well learnt by those, such as her family that had interests in the industry.

"Ms Greengrass." The shipping agent stepped off the ship, he wasn't the captain of the vessel, but he was in charge of the majority of its contents.

Daphne nodded to the man. "I'd like to inspect everything before it is sent ashore." Daphne said removing the shipping invoice from her pocket.

It was the same procedure she went through whenever she came to arrange transport.

"Of course." The man said, he took the shipping invoice, yet, Daphne knew he knew every item on the ship and who it was ordered or sold to. But procedure had to be followed in these instances. It was almost like a dance, a game across the rules and regulations that governed their industries, hers, his, her father's.

Harry though seemed to play to a different set of rules, Harry Potter knew something about the world, that he wasn't or hadn't been ready to share with her.

Which was understandable, given Ginevra Weasley.

Daphne had only looked into her briefly, and that was enough to make her wonder _what _the youngest child of Molly and Arthur Weasley had done to earn such a burning of the records from the Ministry, and from the Minister for Magic.

She did know that Harry's job meant he did something for the Ministry and that he and the Minister had in the past had contact, but now, the relationship was different.

"The decking has recently been replaced." Daphne noted as she stepped aboard the ship. She didn't say that they had missed some flecks of blood that lead up to the bow of the ship, someone, likely several people had been killed on the deck recently.

"Pirates continue to be an issue, for us and the muggle sailors." He said from in front of her.

Despite the ship being a wizard constructed ship it was _not_ unperceivable to muggles, for navigation purposes and sailing on the open seas she was aware that even this ship carried some muggle devices.

It was simpler to use and _exploit_ certain muggle devices than to engineer spells and charms around various muggle obstacles as the Knight Bus did. Daphne was also peripherally aware that applying such charms to a ship involved other complexities. It was something she had been curious enough to read about some years ago when a certain complication came across her path.

With her _relationship_ with Harry and his interest in muggle conveyances the interest had been renewed somewhat. Though a purely muggle conveyance held a certain amount of curiosity for her.

Every time Harry drove her around, watching the country side rush past, the vibrations from the mechanics within the engine coming through the conveyance.

It was an exhilarating experience, Harry had been delighted by her observation. He'd mentioned taking "taking her up" in an _aeroplane_ or a _helicopter,_ which was something he had recently become qualified. From the pictures it appeared to be some form of rotocraft, functioning like some form of aerial screw. Which seemed a muggle mechanisation of hovering as one would on a broom or carpet.

Though none of these things, as Harry described them seemed odd, somewhat strange for a wizard of his caliber to pursue, but he had the intelligence of a man of understanding to pursue such interests. Unlike Arthur Weasley, whom while he was a capable wizard lacked the finesse of knowledge that Harry had in _understanding_ the muggle world, and obviously living in it.

Down below deck there were several wooden boxes and other barrels of potion ingredients and a variety of other rare ingredients that was impossible to bring in through other means.

Daphne walked straight over to certain marked and unmarked crates, knowing which ones, easily perished if not treated correctly to check. That done she moved further below decks to some of the larger items; carcasses of certain beasts that did not grow to a usable size within the United Kingdom, certain fish species that needed to be expertly preserved prior to their transport.

As she was checking the last box the agent approached her once more. "I have a few items which weren't on your invoice that I can offer you."

"Such as?" Daphne asked curiously as she gazed around the her. Everything was clean below decks, so it was likely whatever pirates had made it onto the ship had only had their blood spilled on the deck and had not managed to breach below decks.

If they ship's crew had been feeling particularly malicious they would have hung and eviscerated the pirates and placed them floating on a buoy as a warning. But such things weren't done as much as they used to be, given the muggle's frequency on the shipping lanes, such things, even done to pirates would no doubt become mixed up in the muggles' endless bureaucracy, which while it didn't have anything on what the Minister for Magic had to deal with on a daily basis, was just as long and as over reaching.

The man smiled and gestured to a small room.

While there was no reason for her to be attacked Daphne had her wand ready _just_ in case. Paranoia wasn't necessarily a bad thing, it kept one alive.

"I have a flask of unicorn blood." He paused. As Daphne gave him a hard look, the collection of unicorn blood was illegal in all magical states and territories. Slaying a unicorn lead the slayer to a cursed life.

Then he hastily added. "I have documents certifying that it was collected in over the course of several research trips through Russian forests, it is has been collected from the forest foliage and forest floor from cuts and the result of traumatic births."

"Was the research certified, do you have proof and certification papers that the blood was collected and purified in keeping with the resolutions regarding unicorn blood for sale?" Daphne asked calmly. She hadn't bought unicorn blood before, but had read in the journals her father received that there were very certain procedures that needed to be followed if it was. It was still illegal to import into most countries, but once within a country, as long as the requisite documentation existed it could be sold as a whole or divided.

"I do. I have full documentation photos included." He said removing a box and a set of scrolls.

Daphne checked over the scrolls' wax marks and signatures, none of them appeared fake.

For the photos she removed a small magnifying glass.

It was one of the problems of many magical photos, when they moved their clarity suffered. These had been developed thus so, on some of them she saw evidence of a research group and its various items and objects used for research into the great forests.

"Where precisely were they?" Daphne asked looking at the photos. She was mostly just curious, the documentation would say exactly where, but she would need a map and time to analyse the exact locations.

"Near Podkamennaya-" He started.

"Tunguska." Daphne finished exhaling. Anything coming out of that region was fascinating, sometimes dangerous.

Much like what Harry talked vaguely about, though he had yet to explain precisely what he and his organisation were involved in.

It was one of many things she was sure she could discover (some) of the exact nature of if she pushed and looked hard enough, but something about the mystery of it made her want to find out _naturally_ without stabbing too many people in the back to find it. Maybe it would come to her, as she walked her own path.

Harry had not, aside from a few comments pushed to discover 'what kept her busy'. She was sure, with his contacts that he too could discover (some) of what she did.

Daphne walked away from the docks, her orders would be taken away along the well trodden routes. Her valuable purchase was within her coat.

The agent had allowed her to take the documents after a significant deposit was laid. She wouldn't take possession of the blood until she was sure everything was in order and she had verified to her own satisfaction that everything was correct and had not been forged or altered.

-/

Daphne sat in a chair next to Harry, both of their hair still mildly damp following an 'adventure' that had required a shower. They had been experimenting, and it seemed it was possible to cast a momentum arresting spell to levitate them from the ground and suspend them above the bed. With somewhat hilarious results.

Now though they were sitting in Harry's study, which on her many visits to his house she had not been within, though not always the door had been shut, and now show was within it seemed mostly normal for a wizard. There were books on the bookshelves, filing cabinets, though they were metal, unlike her and her fathers' which were wood. And on his desk there were papers and also a large screen for the 'computer'. It was, she understood an advanced analytical engine that all muggles had access to.

It was this and the other technologies that Harry had access to that she was curious about.

"So do you have a specific location you want to spy on or just curious what your house looks like from orbit?" Harry asked curiously smiling at her.

Daphne removed a folded piece of paper from her coat, it had a latitude and longitude as you would use for precise apparition, she was relatively sure that Harry would be able to interpret it for her, as it was this information her had given her once to arrive at his house, albeit on the road outside.

"Prepared, interesting." He muttered to himself.

It took but the shortest of moments, for Harry to enter the information via the typewriter board.

Daphne stared in amazement as the view through this screen continued downwards close and close until it was as though she were looking at the ground from a broom, high in the clouds, looking down at the ground on a clear day.

"You're impressed." Harry said, a statement rather than a question, though somewhat amazed, which implied that there were more amazing things he could do, Daphne thought to herself and then added, mentally; With his computer, she already knew he could do several interesting things away from it she thought to herself with a subtle smile.

"You're smiling to yourself again." Harry leered gently. Daphne glared at him. He was becoming too good at knowing her moods. "So why're you curious about Tunguska?"

"Just for a..." She trailed off.

"A...?" He asked, swivelling on the chair, which like much of his house was not magic, it was merely another 'something' many muggles used.

"Part of what I do during the day." She said with a less subtle teasing smile.

Harry seemed pensive for a moment. "You're not seeking out aliens are you?" He asked, in a mostly joking tone.

Daphne was caught for a moment, that was _not_ what she had expected him to say, although it was not the first time Harry had made a comment regard extra-terrestrial life.

It was something of an undeniable that the concept of aliens was or had been created by wizards to cover up their own actions, everyone knew this, but there were and had been a curious amount of 'alien' related occurrences in the past 100 years. A great number in the 20th century.

Occasionally, unwise wizards would write about it, suggesting that they _actually _existed, but had been promptly removed from wizarding society and ejected from any points of power. Publically challenging this given knowledge was unwise.

"Not deliberately." She replied neutrally, meeting his gaze. "Is it something you're interested in?"

Harry held his gaze. "I'm interested in lots of things." He smiled. "Including aliens." He stood walking over to his book shelves. And leant against them. "Does that worry you?" He watched her, reading her.

Daphne stood closing the distance between them to stand with him. "No," She paused. "But I am curious how interested you are." He had always been somewhat cautious, about telling her anything about what he did. Though he had implied more recently that his work involved something outside the realms of wizardy and muggles.

"Maybe you'll find out. I think it's something you need to discover."

"Do you believe in them?" Daphne asked as she turned away from him looking around the room.

Harry's tone dropped from playful to serious. "Belief implies a structure; a fiction. Especially when wizards are concerned. I don't believe."

It was left unsaid that he knew. Harry sometimes, Daphne had experienced, became like this; around certain topics. Very serious, and concerned for her welfare, it was part of his being since even when they had been at Hogwarts.

-/

Daphne stared at the building that had just exploded, rather violently. She had been inside the building earlier in the day.

While the shop; Henrik's wasn't somewhere she usually frequented for muggle-style clothing, it was a good place to meet to exchange information with certain contacts that did not to wish in the street or in a wizarding venue. Henrik's was useful _because_ no wizards or witches of note would visit there and no one connected with either muggle or wizard government would go there in normal course of events. It was also merely minutes walk from a rather excellent restaurant run by a wizard and his muggle wife.

The muggle emergency services were already responding and a crowd was forming moving people away from the affected area. It seemed interesting, Daphne mused that only the top floor of the building was destroyed.

Had she been placing explosives in the building to damage it she would have placed it around the lower floors and support structures of the building, to weaken its structural integrity, magical buildings were less susceptible to that form of attack, but not entirely, as she knew from past experience.

The next day Daphne found herself once more in London cursing her curiosity.

She had been in its capital visiting Diagon Alley, certain products had turned up in Knockturn Alley exhibiting strange behaviour, though they weren't charmed nor had any spells attributed to them. They seemed to be mere mannequins, they had been purchased as part of a bulk estate auction some years ago on Sentinel Island and had just recently found to have movement.

It was somewhat outside her usual purview of expertise, but she had to admit it was strange.

Removing, or attempting to remove the mannequins' appendages did not cease the movement.

Even melting the automaton down, which released a horrid acrid smell that was common for the muggle _plastic_ items did little to stop the movement. The sludge as a result of the high temperatures still continued to move, shifting around of its own accord, seemingly finding its way, or attempting to located something out of reach. The others exhibited similar, though not as vigorous movements.

Now though she was back within Henrik's store, annoyed by her own curiosity.

Surprisingly more so, muggle authorities were not in the building. In the past she knew they would be crawling all over a site such as this, like ants come to feast on a sweet treat. Yet, there was nothing, she charmed one muggle who prior to her spell had told her (under a compulsion spell) that some muggle _unit_ had been involved. All these various sections and elements of muggle society, layers of bureaucracy, it was complicated knowing which groups did what, units, armies and whatever other forces.

The building _didn't_ smell of explosives, no muggle or indeed magical explosives that she was familiar with.

In fact the explosion seemed to emanate from the roof space _downwards_. As far as she was aware the muggles kept nothing of value on the roof, beyond their _communications towers_, like the mobile telephone communications systems that Harry used and seemed to always have on or near him.

Though, from the small amount that Harry had said, there were many of these receiving and sending points, removing one wouldn't cause any issues.

Daphne prepared to apparate away, but paused and checked the area.

There _shouldn't_ be anything of issue, while this was or had been a building she'd used for meetings it was also free of any wards and protections, making it a good place to meet, unlike many of the buildings around London which, over time had had many different protections on them, some, which broke down over time leaving traces of their spell work, lying in wait to splinch you at an inopportune moment.

Daphne inclined an eyebrow. There were traces of something, something that would not necessarily prevent apparition but might make it complicated.

She'd seen particulates like this before, in far larger concentrations at Harry's house. She turned hearing voices coming up the fire stairs that she had used to gain access to the floor she was standing on, concentrating she disapparated.

-/

Daphne quickly cast several disillusionment spells as she hid herself behind a lamp post and watched the space before her.

She had, having departed the space formerly occupied by Henrik's allowed herself the time to have a meal and relax and to 'process' as Harry was want to say sometimes. His odd turn of phrase often amused her, when they were both obliquely talking about what they spent their days doing.

She rather enjoyed that, even in their conversations it was fun, interesting and exciting, much like their sexual activities.

But it was how much she enjoyed that side of it, the just being around him that had made her realise that they had long passed beyond _just_ sex.

Leaving the centre of London she'd decided to take a walk along the Thames, which was where she had been fortunate enough to see a cabinet of some sort materialise before her.

She knew of cabinets, such as the one Draco had used while they had been at Hogwarts, and of course the crushing cabinets that some families still maintained for occasional use to extract information from particularly troublesome individuals.

She'd also read of a Chinese Cabinet about 200 years ago that came with it a cursed midget, which had aroused her interest merely because of its rarity, cabinets were hard to create but this had so many features to it along with the midget; there were the gangs, the unique key that could open it, the deaths of whores the came and went as the cabinet was sold. All the information dried up in the 1890s, but the story of it continued to hold interest for her.

But this box, this was something else, it had slowly made itself apparent, a wheezing, groaning trumpeting noise. A light on its top flashed like a beacon to the surrounding area, alerting anyone around to its appearance, and yet, she was the only one who noticed.

It was deep, dark blue with the words "Police Box" and in smaller writing between those words "Public Call on across the top.

Then a man, tall, with very short hair burst out of the box at speed, Daphne stared into the box's interior, it seemed he was a wizard, but something suggested to her not. Its interior was larger within than without. A younger woman came to stand on the edge of the box's threshold and stepped out, the door closing before Daphne could move to see further into the realms of the box's interiors.

"I got so close!" The man shouted in exclamation.

"We've moved." Said the young woman, her standing suggested she was very young, though an adult, very likely, and definitely of a lower class than the man. But her statement confirmed what Daphne had assumed, that the box had dematerialised from somewhere else and then rematerialised here.

"Does it fly?" Which, Daphne thought to herself suggested that the man was the box's owner, its _driver_ or if it flew its...what had Harry called himself A...'_pilot'._

"Disappears there and reappears here, you wouldn't understand." The man sounded like he was a wizard, explaining the simplest of magic to a child, a muggle child.

Average muggles failed to understand the simplest of spells, let alone moving a body through space such as apparition or a portkey.

"...What about that headless thing it's still on the loose?" Daphne just caught the blonde woman's question, though she was more interested in the man.

Something about him, the way he held himself, as he leaned out looking to the river. How he spoke, it was all...different.

It seemed that he had had training in how to speak, how to talk, how to hold himself.

Training that wizards of maturity knew as second nature, Lords and Ladies knew the rules of movement, of standing, and interactions.

This man, hidden below his accent and leather jacket, behind his hair and anger he was someone of standing.

"...Are you going to whitter on all night?" He asked walking past the blonde woman who was talking to herself once more. The man had spoken down to the woman, as most Lords and Ladies would.

Something about this man suggested great power, and great pain, it was most intriguing.

"Mickey, I'll have to tell his mother he's dead and you just went and forgot him! Again"

"You are right you are allen." Daphne frowned, she didn't quite catch what the woman was saying as she turned away from the man. It had been "Allen" or "Alien..."? She knew that muggles sometimes used the term to suggest a disconnected disposition, which this man did have, or perhaps it was how this muggle reconciled the man's abilities with his magical cabinet.

"...because I'm trying to save the lives of every stupid ape blundering about on top of this planet." Daphne cursed herself silently for the amount of charms she had layered around her, they were designed to occlude her from view, sight and sound, had she known she'd need to listen in she would have cast different spells, though she didn't know this pair were going to have such an intriguing conversation.

The pair argued and the woman said the A word again, this time Daphne was sure that the blonde woman had said "Alien", then she mentioned something relating to the man's accent.

Daphne hadn't thought much of the man's accent, any more than the woman's.

"It's a disguise." Daphne shook her head, partly at her own assumption that the box was _just_ a cabinet, the man's inference suggested it disguised far more than just something that could move between points in space. But the girl's response, having been within it, surely it would be obvious that it would need a disguise to hide the powers within.

"This living plastic what's it got against us?"

"Nothing, it loves you..." Daphne couldn't make out some of what he said as he moved closer to the girl. "plenty of smoke and oil, toxins and dioxins in the air. Perfect. Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs."

This gave her pause for thought, it was a name, a species, consciousness suggested an gestalt of some form, an amalgam of some for of consciousness.

"its food stock was destroyed in the war all its protein planets rotted. So Earth. Dinner." He motioned eating and grinned towards her for a moment. Daphne stepped away from direct sight of them as he walked away from the box once more.

As they walked away Daphne slipped out of her hiding and quickly sidled of to the box. She was tempted to removed her wand and cast some spells, but she had no time to do so, the man was still talking to his blonde woman.

Daphne placed her hand against the box, most magical cabinets tended to give off a small amount of magic, depending on their age, one could feel the magic, it tended to crackle with age or bend if new, like green wood.

This though, this blue box, it felt old, older than its wood grains suggested and it was humming, almost undetectably to itself.

Then the man exclaimed "Fantastic!" Daphne rushed back to her place of hiding, but found the couple running away in the opposite direction.

As they ran across the bridge towards the large wheel the muggles had built Daphne allowed herself a moment to relax and again take in the box.

Removing a note pad from her pocket she walked around the box, noting its general dimensions, and using the pad itself to note sizes of its panels and windows. She intended to later research this box, it could be as rare as the Chinese cabinet, or just another vanishing cabinet.

-/

Daphne stood, waiting at the front door, she had all her information placed carefully within her jacket inside compact folders that could hold a multitude of documents from her researches.

She waited patiently for Harry to answer the door, hopefully their conversation would be as interesting and as stimulating as it always was.

He smiled as he saw her standing at the door. She gave him a guarded greeting as he allowed her entry.

"Harry." She said once they were inside.

"Yes...?" He answered looking at her curiously.

"Who's the Doctor and how did you get into the 1970s?" She asked in a deathly calm voice.

"Ah..." Harry said which revealed much in his knowledge of both those subjects.

-/

_A/N:_

_Yes, this chapter is a little bit "Harry-lite". But Daphne is a character I also like to write and it's good to see events from another's point of view on occasion. _

_Harry's presence will be revealed more so in chapter 34._


	34. Chapter 34

**Chapter 34**

"Harry." Daphne said once they were inside.

"Yes...?" Harry looked at her curiously, she seemed anxious and annoyed, two emotions he often didn't see on her.

"Who's the Doctor and how did you get into the 1970s?" She asked in a deathly calm voice.

"Ah..." Harry started and wondered how Daphne had managed to come across the Doctor so early in his machinations into the present day, it wasn't as though anything major had happened...except...then he wondered if 10am was too early for a drink. Maybe a champagne breakfast, though one look at Daphne suggested that breakfast as a stalling technique wouldn't fly.

_A few days ago..._

Harry cursed himself for giving the ministry the phone in the first place.

"_If you didn't want to be contacted why bother with it? You liked your reclusive attitude to them didn't you?"_ Judith asked, intruding into his thoughts as he drove towards the centre of London.

"Where abouts are you?"

"_Walking_ _Harry, it's what some of us do to avoid the congestion charge."_

"We're exempt." Harry said as he changed gear. He had decided to take his E-Type out, now that it had finished being fixed up. But also because it didn't contain as much plastics, not that he was worried about his Lotus coming to life and trying to kill him. But given the Nestene Consciousness was in town, he had to be somewhat careful.

"_You're claiming your Jag as a government vehicle?_" Judith laughed. _"That's going to look good when you pull up near a bomb site."_

"An _explosion_ site, a bomb went off though that's not just what we're investigating." Harry countered.

What they were investigating was somewhat more vague.

All he had was a message left on his messaging service he'd set up.

"_Is this thing? Damn this muggle...! Henrik's Department Store, in muggle London was destroyed last night. Your organisation is charged with investigating, this muggle organisation 'unit' isn't letting anyone in. The site is used as a secure meeting place for wizards."_ Was the message he'd received earlier that morning.

After going to Hogwarts he'd been able to work out further what technology would work around a lot of magic and what didn't. He'd gotten the heaviest duty satellite phone and left instructions with Minister Shacklebolt that it was to be used only in _extreme_ emergencies. Though, given the Doctor's experience with his time-space telegraph Harry reflected he should have known better.

But considering they were heading into turbulent times, not everything could wait for the post. If he'd been contacted sooner they might have avoided the business with the Krynoid, which still had question marks around it.

He also wasn't sure who it was who'd left the message. But it was saved securely, just in case he needed it in the future, or their voice print.

He wasn't sure what exactly "secure meeting place for wizards" meant.

"_You know that this place could be a place for meeting prozzies."_ Harry had forgotten he'd left Judith on the phone while he mused.

"Haven't you hung up yet?"

"_You're paying for the call, it's amusing to listen to you mutter to yourself."_

"That's the engine." Harry muttered flippantly.

"_There you go_." Judith answered, amused. _"Ioan said he's apparating in." _Harry began to open his mouth in worry. "_Away far from the site. Don't worry._"

"I need to worry. I'm sure I've heard of Henrik's before though."

"_Half remembered conversations with the Doctor no doubt, unless you've been buying your clothes there._"

"And never realised?" Harry shrugged. Dudley had been taken into London on some occasions to buy his clothing, or have it specially made as was sometimes the case. Those were not entirely pleasant memories, not as unpleasant as some but...

"Bad memories." He said to himself, or Judith. But there were many bright ones.

"_Sorry."_ Judith said calmly.

"There are far greater nerves to touch on Judith than my childhood with my relatives." Harry said as he overtook a bus and nearly hit a cyclist.

He'd had to show his newly issued security ID, one of the many things he'd been organising, while his organisation, his League, did have the required security clearances, acknowledgements and passes he hadn't really needed any of the identifications, security passes or other things like that until now. Until now he'd been able to do things quietly, or subversively. But the world was about to get anything but quiet the coming years. He was relatively sure that if not UNIT he would no doubt need to work closer with the British security services as well as the Ministry of Magic and its various entities. All the while somehow the League of Paranormal Investigations was to remain a "quiet league" according to the Minister. Which from the way the Minister had queried him about Harry's walking into the Ministry through the _front_ door Harry took it to mean he needed to return to using less obvious methods, unless there was an emergency.

Sometimes all this double talking amused, him, on other occasions it annoyed him.

There was also the issue that had been brewing in the back of his mind for a while, the businesses that started in San Francisco seemingly innocent, plus Shakespeare's Globe and then the Krynoid at Hogwarts.

But for now he had to deal with the present crisis to which he'd been ordered to address.

"Enjoy your walk?" He asked as he slung what would appear to most as an old army bag onto his shoulder. While he valued his magic enlarging bags greatly some of them had failed somewhat after being around the explosions and magic at Hogwarts. He and Ioan were still investigating why, their pet theory was it was just the overload of magic and the Kyrnoid and everything. Their spell and charm work was good, but Hogwarts was better.

His bag was a different sort of bigger on the inside, and there wasn't much likelihood of its dimensions exploding outwards. Or perhaps the same likelihood as there being a TARDIS whose dimensions had exploded out into the world.

"Embracing" Judith smiled. "Enjoy your drive?"

"Thrilling." Harry deadpanned as he looked around for Ioan and saw him with an annoyed look coming from one of the many security checks.

"I was ready to stun that guy!" He hissed.

"Police or UNIT?"

"Police, seems they're pissed at being shoved aside." Ioan commented looking up at the building.

Judith followed his gaze. "Could almost be Harry's work. Explosions, magic, maybe aliens."

"And all in a few days of the" Ioan paused and muttered. "Autons."

"Nestene." Harry countered. "Come on, time to climb the stairs, surprisingly they don't let the lifts run in a building affected by bomb damage."

There were open doors along the floors of the building, but surprisingly it was only the top floors that had any significant damage. They walked out onto the top-most floor before the lift.

"Odd." Judith said breathing in as they three stood looking around at the damage wrought.

"Odd?" Ioan asked he had his wand drawn, but like Harry had remained just outside the door frame.

"There blast pattern comes down from the roof." Judith gestured an area at the back of the floor.

"Interesting." Harry said as he pulled his bag half off and pulled out a large bulky device, it was his further iteration of an energy detector, which he'd continued to develop since his first prototype. Bulky though it was, he was sort of sure it wouldn't bugger up near magic. "Residual energy readings." He said looking at the small screen. He noticed Judith and Ioan peering at it.

"Very _Star Trek_ Harry." Judith commented.

"I'm more of a _Blake's 7 _fan." Harry replied.

Judith arched an eyebrow. "You would be. So is it safe to walk around?"

"Are you asking magically or structurally speaking?" Harry asked.

"I know it's structurally sound, there's no tape warning us of the fact."

"Red or otherwise." Harry looked over to Ioan. "What do you think?"

Ioan was looking at the ground and tapping his wand against a patch where the ash and mud from the fire fighting had created a fine slurry. There was a set of footsteps leading away from the door where they were standing and then another coming back, but they didn't quite make it back to the door.

"A disapparition happened here." Ioan said louder as he muttered spells to himself.

Harry made a thinking noise. "How long ago?"

"Less than 5 minutes." It was Judith, rather than Harry or Ioan who answered.

"Should I even bother asking how?" Harry asked.

"There was a smell, in the air as we came in." Judith looked around. "The perfume and soaps and whatever counter is downstairs."

"Seems like I'm not the only one who doesn't shop here." Harry commented. Judith glared at him. "Someone was in here, their disapparition must have cast their scent around."

"Anything else enlightening?" Harry raised an eyebrow to her.

"Fairly neutral, floral notes, not a very strong perfume. More of a practical side to cleansing than for a perfume's sake, I think."

"I didn't think you appreciated perfume that much Judith." Ioan commented.

"I don't, but like Harry and his knowledge, it's all useful." Judith said with deference to Harry.

"I'm going to head to the roof," He paused and looked to Ioan. "Check for any human residue in case anyone got stuck in the blast. And those footprints – photos." Ioan nodded.

"Ooo, so commanding Harry."

"I've been taking management classes." Harry smiled slyly.

"Really?" Judith stared at him.

"Yes, follow orders or I shoot you." Harry said with a straight face, though Judith laughed.

"Come on, let's see the origin of the bomb."

The concrete stairs to the roof had been particularly damaged and contrary to the rest of the floor there was significant warning tape around this area.

"OH&S overload here." Judith commented to herself. "Somewhere an official is having an aneurism that we're not wearing a high visibility vest and filing out forms every five seconds."

"How about we just risk our lives and you can give me an after action report later about it and I'll compensate you with a house."

"From your village you inherited via flame thrower?" Judith smirked.

The door was missing when they got to the roof. There wasn't much left.

"So what does your gizmo say?" Judith asked.

"You've used the 'gizmo' before, I've just been trying some improvements."

"Making it uglier and heavier than before."

Harry nodded. "Exactly." He pulled it out of his bag again and hummed to himself. "Oh. Not unexpected."

"Oh, what Harry. Sigh!" Judith said in a high pitched exaggerated way and then added. "'Eye flutter'."

He looked at her.

"I can do that myself as you've pointed out Harry, plus I could have destroyed this building with better expertise than whoever blew it up."

"I know, sorry." Harry said passing her the energy detector.

"A matching wavelength?" Judith nodded. "So this is Nestene related. The plastic pals of Polymos strike again. Which would mean we know who blew up this."

Harry was silent for a moment. "Yes, we do. Though something of an overkill."

"The Doctor, overkill?" Judith said in mock shock.

"There's been numerous spells cast downstairs." Ioan's voice travelled up the stairs. "Probably a few bodies taken away as well."

"Oh?" Harry asked as he came up to the roof, joining them.

"There's a dispersal pattern in one corner of a portkey being used. I used to see it on the grass when we went for Quidditch matches."

Harry was silent for a few moments longer than was normal.

"You're wondering if the explosion killed them." Judith said, not at all lightly.

"And then the Doctor killed them?" Harry asked and then shrugged. "'The Doctor lies, the Doctor kills, he just has a righteous justifications for it'". Harry quoted. "Something an old friend once told me."

"There was some plastic residue everywhere, so I'm assuming Auton activity here."

Judith nodded. "That's what was blown up here."

Harry walked around the roof space, there didn't appear to be anything of the explosive, or its target left. "Okay, lets have one final look around downstairs and then we can get home and _not_ be in London."

"For when the Autons start their kick off." Judith said as they walked carefully down the stairs. The explosion having done significant damage to the concrete.

"Well we didn't find anything that matched the device the Doctor and Dr Shaw built in the 70s." Harry paused as they reached the shop floor again. "I've been going through some old UNIT files and there's some information of a Code 7 at a facility and a Sally Arnold who instigated the call of a Containment Team there." Harry shrugged to himself. "Not sure what it was about though."

"What's a Code 7?" Ioan asked distractedly.

"Preparation of death certificates, in case the operation goes south." Judith answered almost immediately.

Harry looked over at her. "There's a few more codes above that one. UNIT went through a period of outsourcing." Judith answered Harry's unasked question.

There wasn't much more to be found on the top floor, they checked the subsequent floors to the basement and all they found was use of a sonic device in the basement.

"It's odd." Harry looked around one final time. "It's like walking around in his life."

"Like someone else's adventure." Judith said.

"Except he's not going to swan in and save the day, and the wizards who're around are more likely to stab us in the back, despite we're working for them." Ioan added.

"We're not _just_ paid by the Ministry, well, LPI is and then I pay you large sums of money. And" Harry paused. "I'm perfectly willing to stab any wizards who come calling, in the back, chest or where ever is convenient, for me."

Ioan nodded. "Good, though I already knew that. But it's still good to know."

Outside it was cooling in the early hours of the morning. "I'll take all the samples and everything you gathered Ioan." Harry gestured towards his car.

"Now I just need to find a place to disapparate home." Ioan sighed.

"I'll give you a lift, Judith, you need-" Harry started, but it seemed between walking from the building and going to his car she'd slipped off.

"She's able to do that remarkably well." Ioan commented lightly.

"Yes. One of the many remarkable things about her. So, lift?"

Ioan nodded. "Yes, with the Nestene broadcast signals around, it's any wonder they used a portkey. Apparition in and disaparition out of the while that was going on would have been difficult."

"Though not impossible now it's gone." Harry pondered as he locked the boot.

"No." Ioan conceded.

-/

_Present..._

They'd settled for mugs of tea, as the kettle boiled Daphne had remained resolutely silent.

She, understanding he wanted to have the conversation in a calm environment, very British, over tea. Once they were settled in his lounge room she asked her question again.

"Which question would you like answered first, and what lead you to it?" Harry paused and Daphne started to open her mouth but he interrupted. "And are you willing to keep an open mind?"

"Yes." She smiled warmly at him. "In reverse order, yes. I had an experience" Harry raised an eyebrow, but didn't ask anything yet. "And the question of you time travelling and this photo." She removed a sheath of papers from her coat and passed him an old wizarding photo.

His breath caught in his chest for a moment. It was in a bar, the photo's focus _wasn't_ him, but was oddly; a bottle of gillywater. But in the background were two men, brothers and then as the photo shifted through its wizarding motion a figure joined them at the table, the figure was wearing a brown leather jacket and it was unmistakably him.

"_How_ did you find this?" Harry said, his voice breaking slightly. He did in fact have a few photos of Gideon and Fabian, from his time in the 70s, knowing them. But considering he had Hermione and Ron and Daphne around at his house, having a photo on display that showed him and those two, together, would've raised some hard to answer questions.

Daphne was surprised, slightly by his question. "Certain people collect information, stored and cross referenced, you just need to know where and when to look." She passed him a second photo. It showed another photo of a different bottle of gillywater, and then there was another photo where he was sitting with the brothers and then, he pulled out a UNIT radio, pulling out the aerial, before leaving the photo. He remembered that day, he'd needed to leave the pub to hear anything through the magic-induced static.

"Ah." Was all Harry said and handed back the photos to Daphne. "You know who those two are then?"

"Gideon and Fabian Prewett, were murdered by Death Eaters during the first Wizarding War with Voldemort." Daphne answered almost immediately. Harry nodded.

Daphne was looking at him curiously as though realising something. "You knew them, and your use of the present tense..." She trailed off in thought.

"Yes." Harry exhaled. "I know Gideon and Fabian." Harry looked at the photo and added. "Knew."

There was some silence between both of them.

"How?" Daphne finally asked.

Harry looked over to Daphne and wondered, where to go from here. "You're an intelligent woman Daphne."

She raised an eyebrow in amusement at his proclamation. "As you are Harry, an intelligent man. Who's stalling with platitudes."

Harry laughed. "That was meant to be sincere!" Daphne smiled at him.

Then she started; "I saw the Doctor, his blue box and a blonde woman a few nights ago." Harry was immediately wide eyed staring at her. "And your surprise suggests you knew all of this."

"Yes." Harry said. "You know about aliens then, if you managed to get from knowing about the Doctor to the 1970s."

Daphne looked at him and smiled. "Yes. And unlike many less informed wizards I am not going to claim you're a deviant who needs to be cast out of our society. I can look beyond provincial ideas that play upon those of lesser intelligence and understanding, all is needed is the correct starting point."

"Good to know." Harry paused to sip his tea. "So what do you know about the Doctor?" Daphne stared hard at him. "Working with the fact you think I know more than you, you can tell me and I can fill in what you don't know." Harry said meeting her stare. Harry leant forward. "Daphne, I won't lie to you, but..." Harry trailed off leaning back. "Yes, I know the Doctor, but it's complicated."

Daphne looked at him for a long time they were both silent. "He is a Lord of things not of this Earth, but connected some how. He travels in cabinet that is larger within than without. His aspect is far more than any other." She paused removing another set of photos spreading them out on the table between them. There were at least 20 photos of different police boxes, for all the photos the police box wasn't the focus of the photo, but for many of them there were people in the background near the police box. An old man with a young teenager and two people, a separate photo again with the old man and a man and a woman. In another a man who seemed to have a stick of celery on his lapel. In another a man in a multicoloured quilt of a coat. A man with long curls in a frock coat. One that looked like someone wearing a fez.

"His cabinet exists through the sea of time, his aspect changing as the times do." Daphne looked over to Harry who was surprisingly silent and unsurprised at her revelations. The information, had initially been hard to find, but once she had settled on the initial aspects of 'the Doctor' she was able to seek out private libraries, information troves and files of associates, even her mother's files had significant information, collected by their family or purchased from others' estates. There were many diary entries acknowledging the cabinet in passing, but these were far less striking than the photographic evidence she had found.

"I know this one." She removed a more recent looking photo, placing it in front of him. It was of the Doctor in his leather jacket and Jack Harkness, when he was travelling with the Doctor. "Was at the Quidditch World Cup." She paused. "That man was also the man I saw the other night." She paused. "Discussing the" She paused again, trying to remember the pronunciation. "Ness-teene Consciousness."

Harry inhaled a breath deeply. "Ah." He continued to pause. "I've known the Doctor much of my life. Though how I ended up in the 70s is a different issue entirely."

"Oh?" Daphne asked.

"Which would you like the answer to first?" Harry looked over at her and wondered if distraction sex might be a better answer to the situation they were in at the moment.

"The 1970s, for which I could not find much evidence of your presence there." Daphne conceded.

"What do you know about" Harry paused for a moment. "Ginny Weasley?"

"Aside from your former relationship?"

Harry nodded.

"She was admitted into the Ministry's buildings several month ago, there is no information of her exiting the Ministry. She was part of a group advocating severe action against deviants in alien aware activities. Something your relationship ended over."

Harry had a look of surprise on his face, again. "Yes, our relationship did end over the existence of aliens and her refusal of their existence."

Daphne nodded, though remained seated and took another sip of her tea.

"Ginny and a group her most devoted ended up in the 1970s, I followed to stop them."

"With the assistance of the Doctor?" Daphne asked.

Harry shook his head. "Not directly. He...assisted my return to my contemporary timeline."

"So his cabinet, this Police Box, rides the sea of time." Daphne asked.

Harry nodded. "Yes." He remained silent once more as she considered the information. "Do you want to know about the Doctor, or" Harry paused, again, this time for a longer period. "Do you want to leave, never see me again?"

Daphne looked over at him, her face both caring and predatory, laughter at the edges of her mouth. "No Harry." She said looking at him, hard. "I'm not going to leave. I think we both know that." She said.

Harry looked at her, he shouldn't have been surprised but he was. "The Doctor's an alien, he travels through time." Harry suddenly blurted out and then laughed.

"I was hoping for somewhat more information than a sudden burst like that Harry." Daphne smiled at him.

So Harry told her.

Daphne looked at the man across from her. A man many in wizarding society would call a mad, insane deviant, who had a friend whom people would say was at best imaginary and at worse evidence of deep psychosis that would only be solved by a encephalectomy.

But the evidence was in front of her and in her notes at home, and it was in the words, in the tales from Harry and the passion with which he told her.

"And you were never tempted to leave with him?" Daphne asked curiously.

Harry shook his head. "Once or twice, but I had my friends here and there was that prophecy and of course Voldemort. There's been a few offers." Harry smiled over at her. "But no. There's plenty to keep me busy here."

"I hope you don't mean me Harry." She asked coolly, while Harry was sentimental he wasn't _that_ sentimental, that amount of sentimentality was somewhat twee, not something Daphne abided.

Harry chuckled at her comment. "No. Not entirely"

"Thank you very much Harry." She mock sulked.

"I'm sure you noticed aliens have visited the Earth many times before." He paused and gestured at the photos and her other papers. "From your research."

"That was something that seemed to be within the information I uncovered, though not acknowledged by any wizarding government or many citizens."

"Well, they're out there and they will keep coming, and as a friend of mine likes to say 'the 21st century's when everything changes, and you gotta be ready'."

"And this is part of what you do?"

"When we're not shagging." Harry provided.

Daphne chuckled. "How very succinct Harry, a parlance that now makes more sense given your stay in the 1970s."

They were silent for some minutes. Then their silence was broken by the phone ringing.

Daphne looked at Harry and he looked back. "Do you mind?"

"It might be important." Daphne said as Harry rose, but then added. "At least it rings, firecalling is sometimes obtrusive."

"You could always just throw some coal on the fire and tell them to piss off." Harry said as he grabbed the phone.

"Sarah, hi." Harry smiled hearing her voice. "Yes, I noticed the commotion in London. Oh? Oh dear, uh...I can't at this moment, but...yes...tomorrow, pending any emergencies. Okay Sarah, I'll bring my bag of tricks. See you." Harry put down the phone, it seemed K9 the irritating, smug, jumped up excuse for a computer had 'died'. Probably something during the Nestene's song and dance, maybe.

"A problem has arisen?"

"Nothing a good oil change and a good kick won't solve." Harry said as he sat down again.

Daphne stood up and sat down next to him, Harry started to smile.

"I am so glad I asked you to the Yule Ball." Harry said in a soft voice.

"I still find it amusing, but knowing more of your manner it surprises me less than it once did." She smirked at him.

-/

_A/N:_

_Harry, Judith and Ioan arrive inside Henrik's just after Daphne disaparates._

_I didn't write Harry explaining how and where he met the Doctor to Daphne, it'd just be a lot of repetition; tedious to write and read. _


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter 35**

Harry drove up into Sarah's driveway, it hadn't quite been the next day, there had been...other things that distracted him.

Not just sex, that was preferable to what he had actually needed to do, more explanations to the Minister for Magic.

It seemed he had not been too pleased with his report that Henrik's had been destroyed 'during events pertaining to an alien incursion into London. Said incursion was dealt with by authorities outside the persuasion of LPI, UNIT and other British forces.'.

Despite Daphne's ease with the concept of aliens and the Doctor and everything in between the Minister seemed to be more demanding of information, or misinformation. Or perhaps just blame, well, direction of blame towards him and elsewhere.

The demands of politics and all that, it was something the Doctor was always annoyed by, but politicians had their uses.

Even if it was just as potential sources of information...or blackmail.

Sarah was doing some gardening he noticed as he drove up. At least that was what it looked like, considering Sarah's own fascination with the extraterrestrial world she could be hiding sensors or grenades in the flower pots.

Though, they'd more likely be sensors than grenades, Sarah had voiced her dislike of guns on more than one occasion, though K9 the smug little robot didn't seem to count. Jumped up fax machine that he was.

"Hi Sarah, sorry I'm late."

Sarah smiled at him. "I'm used to people turning up late, _he_ could never get the time right." Harry smiled at her comment. The Doctor _occasionally_ got his timing right.

"He could get it right."

"Yes, right so we materialised in front of the guards instead of behind them." Harry shut the door of the Exige and walked around the the boot of the car to grab two sets of bags, his old dimensionally trancendental bag and a magically expanded bag, both of which he'd filled with various things he thought might be useful to fix the toaster with an over inflated ego that liked to think it was a computer with some semblance of intelligence.

"I know you don't like K9 Harry but..." Sarah started seemingly sensing his thoughts, or likely seeing his expression.

"I..." Harry started as he shut the boot and locked the car. "Appreciate its..." Harry trailed off again. "K9 was useful in providing me with information to build an energy detection system and sensors." He finally decided on, it was something that would have taken him much longer and possibly not at all had he not had the metal mutt's assistance.

Sarah let him in and led him upstairs, where she had mentioned she kept all her research.

"Must have been hard to haul it up here." Harry commented.

"There's an old dumb waiter in the house."

"Appropriate." Harry commented, Sarah looked back at him disapprovingly.

The attic was much like his workshops and study, littered with alien related stuff, and Harry guessed what were mementos of her time with the Doctor.

There was also the metal mutt itself on a table in the middle of the attic.

"So what have you tried?" Harry asked as he put the bags down and walked around the annoying robot. He then added. "He's gone wrong in the past you've mentioned before."

"Oh, yes, many times, Brendan" Harry looked at her puzzled. "Oh he was my Aunt's ward, works in San Francisco now." She said, musing to herself. "He helped fix him a few times. I've tried jumper leads to his ears and running him on a slow battery charger. That worked a while ago when he was completely discharged."

Harry shook his head as he walked around the robot. "Charming technology. I guess by its inaction that didn't work."

"Not even a peep." Sarah looked forlornly at the robot dog that had assisted her throughout the past 20 plus years.

Harry grabbed the handle at the front of the robot dog and lifted it up, it was heavy, though not as heavy as he expected it was going to be, propping it on one side to look at the underside there didn't appear to be anything dangerously alien sitting there.

Turning it back up he looked at it again, thinking to himself and then turned back to Sarah who was leaning against one of the desks in the attic, watching him quietly.

"I'm no expert with robotics you know." Harry said with a sigh looking at the dog.

Sarah smiled warmly at him. "I know, but you're the closest thing to an expert that's around here. I don't think _he__'__s_ going to make a house call."

"What doctor does nowadays, they've got bigger things to deal with." Harry said as he looked around the attic. "I just want you to be prepared in case I don't get it working." Harry walked around and grabbed one of his bags from the floor. "This is something like 51st century technology."

"Is it?" Sarah exclaimed looking at him.

"The one I met was significantly less..." Harry paused musing on a slightly less offensive word than first came to mind. "Curt with me than this one."

Harry started to remove his energy scanner and a few screwdrivers.

"Screwdrivers?" Sarah asked amused.

"Not sonic." Harry chuckled. "But there's some marks on the case that look like it's been opened before so..."

"I'll leave you to it" She paused. "Unless you'd like me here?" She asked looking to him.

Harry shrugged. "Stay, let me hook this up" He gestured the energy scanner and its sensor leads that were dangling from it. "If there's nothing on this, then I'll try opening it up."

"Him." Sarah idly corrected as pulled over a two chairs and picked up the energy scanner weighing it in her hands as Harry grabbed his bag over for the other connections. "You built this?"

Harry made an affirmative noise. "With some of the information from _him_" He knocked a knuckle against K9. "And with stuff I learnt from around UNIT and other places."

"Clever." Sarah said putting it back down. "So that should tell you if..." She trailed off.

"If there's anything switched on inside his not so small body."

"And if there isn't you'll break out the tools?" She asked watching him.

Harry nodded. "Except I don't have a handy sonic screwdriver in my kit, unless you...?"

Sarah laughed and then grinned. "That rubbish screwdriver! No, the Doctor only let me use it when he was too busy to rescue Harry or me!" She looked at him again and said slightly more quieter. "Have you ever thought of building one?"

Harry paused with what he was doing. "I've no wish to copy the Doctor Sarah. Plus." He reached into his jacket and removed his wand, passing it to her. "I've got my own get-out device, and if I carried around another vaguely phallic device my friends would just endlessly tease me." Harry joked.

Sarah turned the wooden stick over in her hands, she knew about Harry and his wizardry, but he'd not so far shown her any major examples of magic, nor shown her his wand.

It was...it showed use, there were small marks along it, it was totally unlike the Doctor's screwdriver, which had been made of some sort of metal that showed none of the wear and tear of their adventures. But this had the marks of a rough life, the life Harry had so far lived in his young life.

But there was also disguised power in it, just like when she used to rest her hands on the console in the TARDIS or even along the walls in her room, or the corridors when they were in flight. It was like a barely tamed power pulsing throughout the craft.

This likewise felt like it could contain or wield a brilliant power, yet it was elegant, she wondered how one held it and used it, grasped like a tool, or written into the air like a pen or perhaps even waved as one did a wand or even a gun.

Then suddenly with that thought its meaning changed for her, it was something they didn't speak of, not in so much detail.

Then she handed it back to Harry, who had watched her turn it over in her hands as she thought.

"So are we ready to see?" She asked, breaking the silence.

Harry bit his lip as the lines and equations and readings formed up on the screen.

"Not good?"

"No." Harry said as he adjusted the small suctioned sensors he'd attached to various bits of K9. "Not much of a flicker or a tick."

"Well..." Sarah smiled at him as she stood up. "I'll leave you to it. To let you concentrate alone."

Harry nodded to Sarah as he pondered opening it up.

It was different, somewhat taking apart something the Doctor had build Harry mused, it had taken him a good hour to work out how to open and undo the bolts, screws and 'other' that were holding K9 together and now both side panels were open and K9 was exposed.

And...Harry didn't want to remove anything. He's cleared out the dust and what appeared to be detritus plus the spider webs and anything else that didn't look like it was essential.

But it was a mess, in only the way the Doctor could have built something.

The Doctor had once shown him the control mechanisms he'd build for Bessie, their had been sophisticated, stylish and logical once you saw what he was aiming for in his own direct way.

This, while it had been build by the same being, but not the same man, was...there was flashes of brilliance mixed with the madness that was essentially the Doctor.

As he was grabbing around for another torch Sarah called out, there was an edge of panic in her voice.

Harry came running down the stairs to find Sarah standing looking out into her front garden.

Two cars had pulled up.

"That's interesting, expecting anyone?"

Sarah shook her head.

Harry reached into his pocket, as he did so Sarah shot him a look. "Harry" She said in a warning tone. "No shooting in my house."

Harry opened his mouth to reply when Sarah added. "Or garden."

Harry pouted. "You're no fun."

One of the men, as they watched walked up to the front door and rang the bell, they both jumped, despite watching him do so.

"Well." Harry said, and jabbed a thumb to the side. "Mind if I?"

"No, Harry-"

"K9's in pieces, I'll fix him if I come back."

"When." She gave him a firm look.

"When." Harry repeated. Judith had pointed out that he did that, wondering into potentially dangerous situations and giving indistinct answers about surviving said situations.

"Hello. I'm the Doctor, I believe you want to kill me." Harry said in his best Doctor voice.

"Harry!" Sarah exclaimed in a loud voice as she rushed over.

"Harry Potter, could you come with us?" Said the main in a neutral tone, making eye contact briefly with him.

"As a friend of mine would say, why not, getting into cars with mysterious men either makes me someone about to get killed or a prozzie." Harry said once he was closer to him. "I don't really like either of those options really."

They'd escorted him into a car with blacked out windows and driven him somewhere non-descript.

Harry fancied if he were an expert detective he could have worked out where they'd taken him by the ruts and holes in the road, the turns they'd taken, where they'd stopped and for how long.

Except he wasn't, he'd leave the Holmsian detecting to Holmes and Watson, according to the Doctor they existed.

It was an old factory somewhere, or it could have been somewhere mocked up to look like an old factory. It gave him something of a rush, in that to the death or torture sort of way.

There was a table and two chairs one on either side.

Harry was led to it and left to sit, it was less exciting than he'd hoped, there'd been no threats, not even a little bit of physical violence, they hadn't even jabbed him in the back with their guns which remained annoyingly holstered. Harry considered that he _should_ be feeling good about all these points, but if he was being led off like this by somewhat interesting though not all that mysterious people, they should impart a bit of danger to the whole enterprise. If not, what was the point of it all, this sort of thing wasn't at all interesting, as he waiting he flirted with the idea of trying to leave, just to see what they'd do.

After several minutes a man walked out of the gloom and sat down.

"So, Mr Potter."

"Who are you?" Harry asked looking at the man, not trying to hypnotise him, just trying to judge his reaction at the implication that he might try. "No uniforms, not regular UNIT, Broadsword?" Harry looked at the man and then tried "Maybe you're NUIT or OGRON."

"Do I look like I'm a member of the Operativnaya Gruppa Rasvedkoy Obyedinyonnih Natsiy?" Asked the man in an amused tone.

"So...ICIS is that still around? Maybe you're Torchwood" The man snorted as Harry mused to himself. "Or are you Six or Five?" Harry returned from his musing to look at the man. "One of those."

"And you are from LPI, the League of Paranormal Investigations. Provisioned for since the late 60s, operating since the early 2000s." Said the man who was distinctly unmoved by any of Harry's musings and continued with a calm tone. "Did you establish the cause of the explosion at Henrik's?" He enquired.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "That's UNIT's jurisdiction."

"Yet you were there." He paused. "With your associates."

Harry sighed. "An explosive device placed on the roof by an external agent, it destroyed the non-terrestrial device that was planted there." He rattled off in calm slightly bored tone.

"And the building?" The man asked.

"The external agent would, if the agent thought of it at all would consider it collateral damage." Harry explained in a neutral tone as though he were delivering a report. It was not quite what he'd written in his report to the Ministry, but enough that he could rattle off the details.

"It is fortuitous that your organisation should make its existence known now."

"I've been in the phone book for several years now Mr...?" The man ignored his question.

"But the first rather public appearance."

"I like to stay low key, I'm sure you can understand." Harry said as he leaned back in his seat.

"Yes." The man gazed at him for several moments.

"So..." Harry trailed off looking around. "Have we just come together to chat...if so a cup of tea would be nice...or is this a lead up to torture? That's more Torchwood's jurisdiction though, but all in the name of Queen and Country of course." Harry commented cynically.

"Of course." The man seemed amused. The man opened the folder and passed several photos across the table. "Several people, officials, government policy makers, a few military people have been going missing."

Harry leaned forward looking at the photos, some were official photos the sort that adorned offices, some were press, a few were surveillance photos. "Missing? Killed?"

"It was considered." The man acknowledged.

"Or defected, there's still governments out there that want the huge...non terrestrial resources we have." Harry commented and then frowned to himself. "What is your clearance level by the way?"

The man looked at him amused. "Somewhat late in the conversation to be concerned about the Official Secrets Act."

"I couldn't really give a flying fig about the Act. But one likes to know where one stands with regard to m-" Harry stopped himself from saying 'magic' "m-many different things that the act covers."

"I have above Black level clearance and eyes on 'No Eyes Only' documents." Harry raised an eyebrow. "You think wizards have something to do with this?" Harry asked after a moment. The man regarded his question. "Either that or aliens." Harry had decided to abandon the wordy 'extra-terrestrial' wordage for the moment. "If it was just aliens why not go to UNIT?"

"Why not indeed? UNIT has a complicated relationship with the British security service."

"Like the cover up for Torchwood the service did in the North Sea in 1997." Harry commented casually as he looked at the photos.

"My, my, you are well informed." The man commented, though didn't seem surprised.

"So, disappearing people." Harry mused. "There's any number of ways these people could have disappeared, or been made to."

"This isn't some UNIT disappearance or simple murder Mr Potter. These people have been targeted since the turn of the 21st century."

"And you just became aware of it now?" Harry asked surprised.

The man seemed irritated by this observation. "A pattern and acknowledgement has just come to light." He passed across a letter, it was a copy, but Harry could see the original had yellowed considerably and the original had been of a high quality paper, its shape and seal that had leached onto the page indicated it was very likely a scroll.

It was a letter written to a 'Harry Pearce' by an associate, from the context of the letter it seemed they'd known each other and been involved in various plots and what not together.

Some sections of the letter stood out to him however.

_I remember the day that lead me here, in my offices, some stun weapon and then in a room, and then something grabbed me, cold, hard and I found myself here._

_Always a fan of history Harry, I thought maybe someone had slipped something into my tea, and this was some strange form of information gathering, but this. Henry's history doesn't do him justice._

_I'm writing this and leaving instructions for it to be delivered to Thames House, when it gets built. _

_The family I've entrusted will make sure of it, I would leave it with a bank, but they've not been built yet! _

_The government still has use for a good spook, even one who's out of time. _

Harry handed the letter back. "I gather you're Harry Pearce."

"That would be a fair assumption Mr Potter."

"And your friend was clever enough to get this information to you. Even from where he's ended up." Harry tapped the table. "So, what do you need me to do?"

"Nothing of that sounds odd?"

"Odd, but nothing I've heard of, none of this happened anywhere near Cardiff?"

"Torchwood monitors that section quite carefully." Pearce all but spat.

Harry guessed that Mr Pearce was not a friend of Captain Harkness.

"You think this is a magic-related issue." Harry surmised again.

"Someone has been removing people, some CCTV footage suggests wizard involvement, but every official and unofficial advancement has been blocked or-"

Harry cut him off. "Or they come back not remembering what they did."

"Yes!" He all but shouted.

"Oh..." Harry realised. "And they've done it to you." He said in a calm tone.

Pearce looked at him hard.

"Do you have any leads? Somewhere I can start to look, I'd imagine you've tried your own investigation a few times." Harry asked after many moments silence.

-/

Harry shifted around the fibre optic connections again as the picture shuddered and adjusted again flaring like lens flare throughout the image.

The eye piece was an amazing bit of technology, especially paired with the sensor spheres from the Dalek's lower body, but he'd never thought to take them apart for this purpose. _Spying_. He'd mostly had in mind using them for one of his other projects, weapons and detection, but this was far more interesting. Though, what, he was sure would have made K9 even more smug, had he been working was, that while he had K9 open he'd seen how it saw things and how everything was connected through the visual and sensor connectors.

_Flashback..._

He had been driven back to Sarah's house following a briefing on various things Pearce and Harry imagined a team of people had collected and a person and location where he could pass on information to them, or could request a meeting, as it soon became apparent Pearce didn't trust anyone in the government and even less in the Ministry of Magic. Which was actually wholly understandable. He also didn't trust UNIT and its various tendrils or Torchwood.

Which had left Harry as the one that was on the outside of all these organisations, ministries and everything else.

Sarah rushed out to greet him as he walked up the drive.

"Harry, who-"

"Inside." Harry muttered.

"Secrets, you won't tell me." Sarah said as they made it up to the attic.

Harry shrugged as he sat back down in front of K9 as though nothing had happened.

"Nothing that you can do to help Sarah. Plus I wouldn't want anything to happen to you."

Sarah smiled warmly at him. "I can look after myself Harry, I've travelled with the Doctor after all."

"Which prepares you for lots of things, but not others..." Harry said as he continued to muse to himself. The man who had been grabbed, his signature had been fairly indistinguishable, maybe Pearce had deliberately done that. He'd been grabbed by something, something cold and hard and then thrown backwards through time. It was an odd way to kill someone, chucking them back into history.

"You're thinking to yourself again." Sarah butted into his thoughts in an amused tone.

"Yes, just thinking to myself."

"So what about K9?" Sarah asked, changing the subject.

"Well, just let me just settle back into looking at it Sarah!" Harry said as he switched on the torches again as he gazed into the inner workings of the metal machine.

It was weird, circuit boards on top of what looked like vacuum tubes, along side stuff that wouldn't have looked out of place inside a Dalek or a Drahvin interceptor.

But acting as interface between these things, between the soldered bits and the fluid like golden connections was a rubbery sort of thing, almost plastic like, and that was the stuff that had twisted and moved, crushing certain bits and pieces.

He pointed it out to Sarah.

"Can you do anything?" She asked in a tight voice.

Harry looked at it. He had very little idea how to activate it, _if_ it was Nesetene technology and if he could get a hold of an energy unit or another bit of their technology either from their recent invasion attempt or from one of the earlier incursions he was really unsure if he could do it safely.

"By your silence I-"

Harry cut her off looking to her. "If I could, I would, but, I'm not sure if that's even the cause."

"The Doctor could." Sarah said looking at it.

Harry nodded. "Keep him with you when you go out, maybe you'll run into him." Harry said lightly. He _knew_ the Doctor met, would meet...whatever, Sarah at some point before he'd met Martha Jones. The Doctor had mentioned it when he'd been recovering. He'd at least remembered that, he always remembered the Doctor's companions.

Sarah looked at him oddly for a moment or two. "As long as you put him back together. You never know, he might work things out on his own." Sarah said as she picked up his screwdriver handing it out to him.

"Fine. Maybe." Harry said as he took the offered screwdriver.

-/

Working out what to use to wire up the Dalek eye piece wasn't too difficult, the ICMG's Professor Rachel Jenson had taken extensive notes after the Doctor had wired the Dalek's transmat in the 60s.

But trying to make whatever century the Dalek was from work with 21st century technology was still tricky, but his initial tests had shown that it was the thing for the job, at least partially so.

The Dalek eye piece and the sensor spheres that adorned the 'skirt' of the Dalek "saw" through an amazing amount of energy spectrum, right through and including all wizarding protections, occulations and other forms of magic that he'd managed to point the eye and a section of the Dalek spheres at.

Which presented a rather good opportunity for espionage, but also raised several interesting questions and answered a few.

It meant that the Daleks could see wizards and any wizarding stuff, but whether they could make sense of it was another question.

It also meant, should wizarding culture ever come up against the Daleks, they wouldn't be afforded any protections, anything more than humans did at the moment. Though conversely it meant that they could use magic against the Daleks. Probably.

"Playing with a Dalek's bumps, surely that's some form of xenophillia." Judith drawled by the door to the workshop.

Harry quickly whipped his hand away from section of the spheres that he'd been resting his hand on and tapping the spheres idly and glared at Judith.

"Of all the aliens I didn't think you'd be found fondling a dead Dalek. Necro-xenophillia."

"Surely because I'm fondling the travel machine it's just a harmless bit xeno-paraphllia?" Harry deadpanned as he looked back the electronics and laptop that everything was wired through.

"Touché. You're learning Harry, my influence is-"

"Badly rubbing off on me." Harry muttered.

"Well, I wouldn't have used quite those somewhat Freudian words." Judith said as she approached him.

"Well, I can stop my fondling of alien machine parts once Ioan arrives."

"And so begins out work in the spy trade." Judith said in an oddly neutral tone.

"We're all part of the espionage family. UNIT covers the and cleans up the alien detritus, Five and Six do their work-"

Judith cut in. "And we do everything that falls into the cracks."

"Not the words I would have used." Harry grinned at Judith. "But yes, all those cracks in time and space into and out of the wizarding world that aliens have fallen through."

"Or been pulled through." Judith commented in a dark tone.

"I heard Judith muttering about darkly, obviously we're going to have a great time then." Judith beamed at them as Ioan walked in.

"You're happy." Harry tapped at the keyboard and looked back at him.

"Spying on old wizaridng families with alien technology for ways they've been bumping off spooks? Why wouldn't I?"

"Why indeed." Harry raised an eyebrow.

-/

"I feel like we're doing the _Grand__Designs_ tour of great wizarding estates." Judith said as she shifted in the front seat of the Defender. The Dalek eye stalk might be able to see through a lot of stuff, but it did have a very narrow field of vision.

They'd also, after the first house had to take it apart and readjust the zoom functions of it to get a better look from the distances they were forced to keep from the houses.

Harry'd left Ioan to the driving as he'd needed to sit in the back with the rest of the equipment, which, while the Dalek eye didn't mind being near the wards and the rest of the magical protections, the same could not be said for the various interfaces he'd had to bodge together to make it work.

Harry felt like thumping the laptop as he looked at the screen, and then changed his mind to feeling like thumping the people in MI5 who'd provided him with the list of locations to search, this would be the fifth house that was a bust.

That was if they could get a clear picture, there was a heavier than 'normal' amount of interference coming from the wards around the grounds that they were driving close to.

"Anything?" Ioan called backward.

Harry muttered to himself as he adjusted the electronics that were sitting on the seat beside him, it was a mix of current technology and 60s era technology, for some reason the 60s stuff handled things better than any transistors and microprocessors he'd tried to use. It didn't handle it very well though, the fact the adjacent footwell was filled with vacuum tubes was evidence of this.

"Just..." Harry trailed off as he looked at the screen, there was something...fuzzy, which could mean anything, the Dalek eye piece was registering it as a 'something' with the interface also acknowledging that is was a something. But he couldn't tell what, ideally they needed to get closer, which was problematic.

Then Ioan started to turn the Defender around and began to accelerate.

Harry looked around. "What's happening?"

"Behind us." Judith's tone was darkly amused.

Harry craned around, behind them, with all 6 heads barking were two three headed dogs.

-/

"Do you think this is a good idea?" Ioan's voice came through the headset.

"Probably not, but if they're hiding something then I'd like to know if they're who we're looking for." Harry said his voice equally distorted.

"And if they're not?" Ioan asked.

"Then we leave them to go about their lives." Judith snorted.

"As Judith says, we discover what they're doing and then if they're not doing anything within our purview we leave them to it..." Harry paused.

"That's very reasoned." Judith shot a quizical look at Harry from the seat beside him.

"And keep the information should we need it for coercion methods in the future."

"That's more like the Harry we know." Ioan chuckled to himself as he looked out the window from the rear of the aircraft.

Harry checked over the instruments again and hoped the wards didn't go unbelievably high as he really didn't want to have to bail out of the helicopter should they suddenly run into any magical wards, it had cost a fair amount to hire the helicopter at short notice, especially as he wanted, well needed to fly it himself. Explaining away the Dalek eye piece and the sensor spheres, the other alien technology and what they might be able to see on the ground would be fairly difficult.

After many minutes flight Harry checked the instruments and then also looked down.

"We're here." He announced as he lowered the hovering aircraft down as much as he felt safe.

"Alright, let's see if they've got grow lights and hydroponics or a pill press and a meth-lab."

Harry rolled his eyes. "You really think wizards would get involved with that?"

Judith just shrugged.

"Children. Picture's up, shift a couple of inches to the left Judith." Ioan as he adjusted the connections in the rear of the helicopter and studied the screen.

There was something in the building, but it wasn't alien, that he could tell from the energy signatures the eye piece was reading, it was magical.

There was also the dread of realisation of what they were, not that he had a huge fear of them, but spiders tended not to inhabit one's dreams.

"Acromantulas." Ioan announced.

"Acromantulas?" Harry repeated.

"Looks like they're breeding them, the lower section of the house is separated into areas, I've got different sizes. Organic and magical, both flaring up on the sensor readings." Ioan replied.

"Very well. We'll put this in the potential blackmail category then. Time to go then."

"Speedier the better Harry, it looks like they're none too fond of being spied upon."

Harry was about to have a go at Judith's turn of phrase when spells shot past them. Harry stared in amazement for a moment, there were at least 5 wizards on brooms rising up, shooting at them.

"Whenever we go out we're always shot at." Ioan complained.

"And we wouldn't have it any other way." Judith commented lightly, looking to Harry, but his face was full of concentration as the helicopter rotated on its axis and tilted forward, gathering speed.

"Are they still following?" Harry asked after a moment as he adjusted their speed, a flash of spell fire was the answer. Harry adjusted his control to make their flight a little more unpredictable.

"Yes." Judith answered unessicearily.

Another burst of spell fire followed.

"They must be using top of the line racing brooms to follow us and fire at the same time takes some skill at speed."

"Been there, done that." Harry said, though he very much wished he was on a broom at the moment. The helicopter was not any form of military craft and he really wasn't sure how long he'd be able to keep them from being hit.

"Do you think they'll keep following us?" Harry asked.

Ioan was trying to look backward. "By the looks of things, yes."

Harry bit his lip and grabbed the radio, adjusting frequencies. "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, this is Whiskey-Hotel-Oscar Zero Nine, Wyvern, Wyvern, Wyvern." Harry waited as likely the codeword was processed.

"Wyvern confirmed, location tracking. Hostiles?"

"At least 5 hostiles, visual recognition possible."

"Confirmed Whiskey-Hotel-Oscar Nine, ETA 2 minutes. Continue on heading."

Harry could feel the eyes of Judith and Ioan on him as he focused on pushing the helicopter faster watching the instruments approach their maximum.

"Well?" Ioan asked impatiently.

Harry sighed. "After that stuff with the dragon it was decided that the government couldn't have deadly stuff flying around, an amendment to the various agreements was with the Ministry of Magic was quietly pushed through. Wyvern allows the United Kingdom to defend its airspace against any magical threats that are identified."

Harry didn't feel it was the time or place to mention he'd been deeply involved in helping to get it through to the Ministry of Magic, or how he'd assisted in what and how to do with various creatures...and people.

It was, a different world they lived in.

It was at that point two jets screamed past.

"Whiskey Hotel Oscar Nine, continue on course."

"Received."

Ioan stepped down firmly onto the ground. "I never thought I'd be relieved to be out of the air." He said and glared at Harry.

"You're not going to say all you want now is a quiet life to grow vegetables and watch the Earth be invaded by the slimy sea slugs of Vogon are you?"

"There's such a thing?" Judith asked, handing Harry the Dalek eyestalk.

"No. Hopefully not. Their poetry's terrible." Harry said as he gazed up a the sky. He doubted there would still be bits of people and broom falling out of the sky, their pursuers had been well and truly...defeated.

"You two can get this packed up and head home, we'll continue in a day or two."

Ioan and Judith looked at him oddly. "Dangerous situation, nearly dying I thought you'd want a break."

Ioan shook his head. "See you tomorrow Harry." He said walking past Harry patting him on the back as he did so.

"Nice that you're finally caring, even if it does give you the jollies when we're in danger." Judith winked at him.

"Just when _I_'m in danger!" Harry called out in jest as Judith walked from him.

-/

Day Five and Harry was starting to think that MI5 had just grabbed the wizarding equivalent of the phone book and aimed grabbed a bunch of names out of said hypothetical book.

Or it just meant that a large number of wizards, none of whom seemed to live next to a main road were up to various dodgy things that MI5 had detected and then sent LPI to investigate.

Though whatever it had that had sent Pearce's friend backward in time was as intriguing as it was worrying. As it happened nowhere near Cardiff, none of the disappearances happened near Cardiff in fact, and it wasn't as though the rift had a portal somewhere that you could chuck people into.

It was more a belching and farting temporal phenomena.

Harry hoped they'd get lucky soon, they had been going through his stock of vacuum tubes rather quickly.

"Anything?" Ioan asked with a sigh as he changed gear, they were currently _crawling_ over the rough terrain near this particular house somewhere far west of Sheffield.

Harry glanced at the sensor and image readouts, it was still fairly inconclusive, fairly high level protections around the house, the various comings and goings of house elves, various spells, but nothing that screamed dangerous.

"Nope. Onwards I guess." Harry said dragging a hand through his hair, something he had done in the past whilst thinking, but he'd stopped when at Hogwarts, even after a few years there people still seemed to look when he did it, when his hair revealed "the scar".

It didn't worry him any longer, he had far more physical and psychological ones to contend with.

Then he almost headbutted the head rest in front of him and moments after that everything on his laptop started squawking at him.

It was registering _massive_ unrecognised energy signatures fluctuating between the negative and present...whatever that meant.

"What happened?" Harry asked excitedly.

"Argh." Ioan said rubbing his shoulder where the seatbelt had grabbed. "We drove into a deep ditch."

"Well, we've also found our house, where's the eye?" Harry leant forward. "Judith?"

"Got it, still holding your precious Dalek stalk." Judith called, seemingly unaffected by the hole they'd fallen into.

"It must be a fair way below the cellar." Harry said to himself.

Ioan was meanwhile trying to extricate them. Harry frowned as they didn't move, just the engine revved.

Locking the coordinates, readings and sensor information down he unbuckled his seat belt and shifted gingerly outside.

It was more of a hole than a ditch they'd fallen into.

"Recovery equipment. Judith, a hand."

"Tell me, why you're not just levitating it out of here?" Judith asked as they hammered the land anchor into place.

"Because we're on the edge of some wizard's property who's holding something mysterious and likely dangerous and I don't want to alert him-"

"Could be a her." Judith interjected.

"Or her." Harry glared at her. "That we're out here."

"You just don't want to be rescued by the cute fly boys-"

Harry cut Judith off. "Or girls."

Judith raised an eyebrow. "You don't want to be rescued by the _cute_ flyboys."

"I think you're confusing me with Jack."

"You're happy to shag your girlfriend in every room of your house." Judith commented.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Can we not discuss my sex life?"

"No better place to Harry. When you're up to your knees in mud and moss, you can't escape my questions." Judith intoned in a grandiose voice.

"I can ignore you though." Harry muttered as he leaned over to check the land anchor, then Judith slapped him on the arse.

"Ignore that."

"Sexual harassment." Harry stood up quickly.

"You're the employer."

"Try the winch now." He growled at her. Judith just smiled slyly at him.

-/

Harry leaned back in his chair, musing to himself, wishing that there was the wizarding equivalent of a phone directory, or something. A search engine would be nice.

The estate was large, the grounds large with a lot of plants, and the main house fenced, there was a small access road to it, unsealed and probably only used by horse and carriages.

Going in guns blazing probably wasn't going to be the best course of action.

The cause for his musing was the satellite image that he'd got of the house, it seemed, of the several he'd been able to find, at least three of them showed several people there, it appeared to be some type of party or something that was going on there.

Which would suggest that there was a way of getting in to have a nosy about, if only he knew someone with in roads to the upper classes of wizarding society who didn't think he was mad or hated him for bumping off Voldemort.

Not that those were the only people around. Some just didn't like him.

Then there was one rather special woman, whom he was thankful of knowing, and sharing a bed with.

"You want to know if I know something and someone, without telling me why or for what?" Daphne asked around the wine glasses that Harry had poured a mellow wine into.

Harry nodded. "But if I were to guess this was for your work." Daphne ignored the wine and walked over to him, running her hands down over his chest.

"This is...different." Harry said.

"We've acknowledged further feelings and more complicated lives to one another Harry." She whispered into his ear. "There must be a little more foreplay and interaction."

"Okay." Harry said as he tilted his head back to look at her.

Daphne walked back into the kitchen dressed in a slightly more casual clothing than she had arrived in, extracted from her clutch bag of clothing she carried with her.

They had somewhat missed dinner during their engaging in conversation...and other things.

A smell of bread and soup greeted her as she walked in, Harry was similarly attired, working in his kitchen in a manner that spoke volumes of his character and upbringing in moments.

"So, what is it, Harry Potter, that you wish to call on my knowledge of the wizarding world that you cannot discover with your muggle devices and ingenuity?" She asked as she covered the distance between the door and where Harry was standing.

"Later, food first, we missed dinner. _Again._" He said looking back to her.

Daphne frowned slightly as she looked at the estate of Baron Liam Warner-Tirnevere and Baroness Louise Liam Warner-Tirnevere. They were known to her, her and most of those who had been in Slytherin or Ravenclaw probably knew them in some way.

They were collectors of highly prized materials, dealers in artefects and somewhat dangerous company to be around at the best of times. But their parties were a perfect place for higher society wizards to meet away from the confines of Ministry functions and other functions where less salubrious members of society might attend.

Their soirees were tolerable, sometimes enjoyable to a point. They did not tolerate spies from the Ministry, she had heard rumour that the Baron and Baroness disposed of spies in interesting ways, somewhat macabre in some respects.

She explained this to Harry, who seemed mostly indifferent to strangely fascinated with the prospect of being danger, it was one of the more interesting parts of his personality. But it was completely understandable given his school life, though she had suggested lightly once that some wizards given his life would settle down on an estate and live life and luxury. Harry had scoffed at the idea 'how boring would that be!' he'd said.

"So do you think you'd be able to wrangle an invite to this potentially dangerous household?" Harry asked with a grin.

-/

Harry shifted next to her again for the umpteenth time since they'd departed.

Daphne looked to him again and glared at him. Harry sighed.

He was, at least dressed for the occasion, he appeared to have taken similar advice from whomever it was that advised him when she first saw him, _when__he__was__stabbed_, or apparently stabbed.

The coat he was wearing extended past his waist to his knees. Harry seemed to have chosen it because of its space for him to place things within its pockets.

The expandable bags she had warned him would likely be confiscated, but he'd muttered something about hiding things in the lining.

The shirt he was wearing seemed to accentuate his body shape, Harry had said something about a captain being _very_ persuasive about it.

This captain must have been very persuasive, considering Harry tended not to dress up for many occasions. Practicality was his word.

It was understandable for his work, but one should always be ready to attend a function, you never knew what might come of it, and if there was a death, one must maintain decorum, and the best way to avoid notice is to blend in.

Harry had wanted to _drive_ to the Baron and Baroness' residence, he assured her he even had something that would _probably_be impervious to the magical environment.

However, one arrived at functions such as these in certain agreed ways. By horse, carriage or port key, but port keys were of issue to arrange with the Baron and Baroness, though they did not object to their use.

It was also nice to use this carriage, her mother and father had been somewhat intrigued that she had requested to use it for this outing, and that she elected to go to the locale. Though she was not sure which intrigued them more, her attendance here, or the use of this carriage with space for two people.

She supposed that given that her relationship with Harry had moved beyond that of mere sexual intercourse, or at least they had begun to share more secrets, as one did in a deepening relationship, that her mother and father would wish to have a meeting between them.

Any purely sexual relationship was of her own business and they wished nothing of her personal life. She had her own house, lifestyle and movements. But a deepening relationship was something that could have the potential of family affects.

"You _rode_ to the last engagement you attended." Daphne said as Harry gazed out the window, frowning.

"I didn't have anything capable of making it up here then."

"And would you feel comfortable knowing your conveyance was left to the groomsmen while we are inside being entertained?" She asked and then smiled as she knew she had grasped upon his concerned.

He pulled a face at her. "I should never have confided in you." He pouted and then grinned.

"I don't understand why we can't be sitting next to each other." He said nodding around the cabin.

"To allow the occupants to have civilised conversation Mr Potter."

"Ms Greengrass, _must_ we be civilised within the confines of our carriage?"

"_My_ carriage." She corrected, Harry glared and than smiled at her.

"Thank you for arranging this and coming along. You didn't and..." he trailed off, he had already said, many times he was concerned for her safety. That this was an investigation he and his League had been charged with, not her and that he was...quite concerned for her welfare.

Harry didn't know just how well she could manage her safety and endanger others', should of course the need or the situation ever arise.

The carriage started to slow and then came to s atop, Harry stepped out first, and held his hand out for Daphne _as__instructed__to__do__so_.

The Greek revival-style manor was far more impressive up close than as he'd seen it from the sattelite image and through the Dalek eye piece.

Thinking of that he looked around out into the darkness, he had explained everything to Ioan and Judith, they had been completely against him investigating alone.

But it was the only way they'd get into something this fortified, they were however keeping watch, with the express orders not to come rushing in.

With a tank, maybe.

"It's impressive." He said needlessly as he looked up at the building. "It puts my house into perspective."

"It is interesting."

"Imagine cleaning it though." Harry shook his head and then added. "Oh, elves, magic...right." Harry shook his head again.

"Come along Harry." Daphne said as she closed the door to the carriage.

"Yes Daphne." Harry said with a sigh.

Daphne had gone off to greet the Baroness, leaving him in the antechamber...or greeting room or something.

Harry almost wished someone would start shooting, stabbing or generally torturing him, it'd be better than all this pomp.

Then something, or rather someone turned up, which was not quite as bad, but still...

"Potter! Whatare you doing here?"

Harry turned around and beamed an acid smile at the blond haired pomp himself.

"Malfoy! Long time. How've you been? Read the latest share prices, on the rise, panic buying and all that."

For a few moments he seemed genuinely perplexed. "Are you the entertainment Potter?" He asked, Harry wasn't sure of Malfoy was trying to be funny, didn't understand what he'd been talking about, or was trying to be genuinely insulting.

"I accompanied Daphne Greengrass." This time Malfoy did laugh.

"You, accompanying _her_? Don't make me laugh Potter I-" He was cut off as Daphne walked over.

"Harry. Draco. I wasn't aware you attended these soirees." Malfoy looked between them slightly taken a back. "Shall we go in Draco or are you greeting people as they arrive?" Daphne asked saccharine sweetly.

There were people inside a large ball room milling around talking and eating. Daphne nodded to him as he opened his mouth to say he was going to mill around and stake out the room.

"So, he's your latest sexual relief, you could have done far better Greengrass." Daphne turned to Draco who after accompanying them in had wandered off until Harry had started his rounds of the room. Looking for some form of passage or mention of below into the depths of the building, where supposedly lurked something of non-magical power.

"With such a lovely turn of phrase Draco I am surprised my sister proceeded with the annulment."

"That was a private manner." He said immediately looking around.

"Between families." She countered. "And what of you Draco? Have you had anyone of interest pass your way?" She asked casually, plucking two glasses of sparkling wine that passed them by, handing one to him. He dipped his head slightly to her as he took the glass.

"I am exploring my options abroad, it has been made aware to me that broadening my appeals would be as beneficial as it is interesting."

"French whores then?" Daphne asked flippantly and then cursed herself, it was Harry's flippant nature rubbing off on her.

Draco was shocked and then amused for a moment. "An interesting turn of phrase my dear Ms Greengrasse. But I have no need of whores." He paused taking a sip. "Speaking of, have you heard anything of the Weasley girl Potter was infatuated with?" He asked, seemingly genuinely interested.

"Do you mean aside from her psychotic break and cult connections?" Daphne asked casually.

Draco paused for a moment. "Yes." He took another sip of his wine looking around at the other guests. "Aside from that. Is discussion of his exes what passes for pillow talk between you?" He sneered slightly.

"We're too busy fucking to engage in conversation Draco, maybe you finish too quickly?" Daphne said with a smile as Draco choked on his wine and then turned to glare at him.

"My stamina is not at question _Greengrass_. Perhaps your Lothario is too busy with his own ministrations" He paused and looked at her. "Or is it you, using" He smirked to himself. "Potter for your own amusement."

Daphne smiled sweetly at Draco. "I'm sure you spend your time imagining that all of the time my dear Draco." Malfoy was nodding along, thinking she was agreeing with him, and then stopped, eyes wide.

"I do...so enjoy these little discussions we have Daphne." He said attempting to recover some composure.

"It is always enlivening to discuss things that one finds stimulating." She paused taking a sip of her wine. "Well, for one of us it is stimulating, you still haven't enlightened on your life Draco, despite showing great interest in mine _and_ Harry's. I'll be sure to tell him you were _so_ interested."

"Where is Potter anyway?"

"Changing the subject back to Harry Draco, I always knew you were obsessed, but..." She stepped closer to him. "Just how obsessed are you, should I worry about him sharing his bed with another?"

Daphne smiled to herself as Draco Malfoy looked like he was going to throw up. Which was a pity, because to wine was of an excellent vintage, and the carpets sumptuous, the Baron and Baroness had managed to completely remove the blood and brain matter that had been spilled over them at a previous soiree.

Harry had left Daphne to mingle and it seemed talk to Malfoy, or if Daphne was to be believed he should call him _Draco_ as everyone on 'known terms' did, titles were only for formal occasions, which this wasn't.

Harry wondered if _Draco_ would adhere to social conventions, or just be the git he'd always been.

That said, Draco was consistently a git, Ron had been one on and off. That incident back during the Triwizard was something he'd never forget, 'a great insight into an individual's personality are during times of unexpected revelation' Magister had said to him on one occasion. It was one revelation he'd never forgotten.

A tray of sparkling wine floated past him and paused waiting expectantly in front of him. While he would've loved to have a drink, he also wanted to keep as clear a head as he could, especially given he didn't know what exactly he was looking for.

"Umm..." He started and felt odd talking to a tray, even a magical one. "Anything not alcoholic?" He asked forcing his inflection just a little bit higher to make the question obvious. The tray paused for a moment and shifted away. Harry looked around and started to walk off, and then another tray appeared from somewhere that held tall glasses of what looked like various juices, including pumpkin and sparkling water. Plucking the water he resisted the urge to thank the tray.

"Really, you're getting worse than Sarah." He said to himself as he continued to mingle around the edges of the room as he made mental notes of anyone or thing that looked interesting.

Interesting thing of note 1: No house elves. Daphne had been somewhat unsure with regard to this. Some witches and wizards had elves as wait staff, some used magic as was used here, at least for the drinks and some used other witches and wizards sometimes even squibs.

It was odd being already on the inside and not surreptitiously breaking in...gaining entry without notice, which was how Judith, Ioan and himself usually conducted operations.

At least most of the people were actually mingling around, talking about...whatever they were talking about.

While interesting the conversations were, on an intellectual level of the conversations of wizarding industrialists, business men and women and whomever else was here, the lords and ladies of wizarding society no doubt. They weren't vital to what he was here to investigate.

But the people on the periphery, the wizards and witches who weren't engaging in conversation and seemed to be doing a good job of _not_ being noticed.

If this party had been a movie scene, he imagined they would all be dressed in suits with little squiggly earpieces and _very_ obvious.

Except this was the wizarding world, which meant that things were far more interesting.

"Hello there." He said to the man, He'd managed to find someone who was standing some ways away from the main action in a small anteroom that seemed to lead to the toilets...or something.

The man didn't respond but Harry saw his arms flex under his robes, the man hadn't reached for his wand but he got the impression that he could have grabbed it and shot a stunning curse at him before he would have even the briefest chance to shout 'don't shoot I'm pregnant'...or something shorter and more truthful.

"I know. You shouldn't talk to me." Harry walked slowly past the man, continuing to keep his voice calm and steady.

Harry paced again looking back towards the door to where he assumed the toilets, or quite possibly the private sex chamber lurked.

"I was just wondering..." He paced past the man again. "Is that the way to the toilets?" He said coming to a stop in front of the man, who despite being somewhat taller than him, he could still maintain facial contact with his eyes.

"Yes, they're just..." He trailed off as stared at him.

"Just through there." Harry said with the man. "And that is how it's done." Harry whispered to himself.

"You are no longer in control of your faculties, do you understand me." A statement rather than a question

"I...obey."

"Good." Harry said smoothly. With practice came less headaches and more energy channelled into concentration, eyes, body movement, facial expression, all focused the individual's mind.

"How many does Baron have protecting the soiree?"

"30, Baroness demands full security." He said in a monotone, watching him.

Interesting, Harry thought to himself. The Baroness was the one organising the shots. So Judith might be right it was a _she._

"And now, tell me about the things in the cellar." Harry said in a low tone.

Daphne looked around the room, she had seen Harry go into the antechamber of the powder room many minutes ago and then depart having obviously not visited any washrooms contained within.

But now she wasn't sure where he had gone. Draco was seemingly trying to get the attention of a woman who was even younger than Astoria, her younger sister.

"Must you go after such young women Draco?" She muttered as she brushed past him.

"She's out of schooling Greengrass." Was Draco's only response.

Really. Draco Malfoy was an uncouth individual sometimes, more than sometimes. He had however changed since their darling days at Hogwarts, she was challenged to think of anyone who had not changed. Those years at Hogwarts had been some of the hardest for all of them. Harry the most, but Draco also, for entirely different reasons.

Making her way carefully to the powder room she found one the sentinels who attempted to make themselves unknown at these gatherings. Most guests failed to notice even their existence. It was as though they had powerful notice me not charms on them, but not. It was something more than that, something practically undetectable, unless you knew where to look.

Also, what to look for, but this man _was__not_ what she expected. He was relatively attentive, no one looking briefly at the man would think otherwise.

But there was a slightly glassy look to the man's eyes, not quite the Imperius curse, this was far more subtle. The man his personality was still there, but there was something..., something she couldn't quite grasp.

As she move closer she could her him mutter softly. "I will obey, I will continue to monitor as the Baroness instructed..."

It was not difficult to draw the conclusion that this was of Harry's doing, though she could not think, at the moment how, without casting any spells, which would have been noticed by if not the other party-goers then by the internal charm work.

Whatever information if any that Harry had extracted from the man he had needed to move on to others to continue to gather information.

Given that she had not seen any great influx of the sentinel personnel to any location he was likely still in the process of information gathering.

He wasn't in the main room, which meant he was searching the adjacent rooms and corridors for more...she paused looking at the man muttering to himself. More pliable individuals to extract information from.

Harry found himself wandering the corridors, feeling a little like he was trapped in a maze.

He'd so far questioned about 10 different people, and the last couple seemed to suggest there was something in the rear left of the house. The last two people he'd had to push rather hard to extract that information.

They'd probably recover.

He'd found cloak rooms, more toilets, what looked like a private dancing room and a small library, but no stairs, nothing really.

Then he came to another corridor that went straight across the one he was standing in, and then someone told him to stop where he was.

Daphne had managed to track Harry by deducing the path he'd taken to find the various sentinels and gather information from them. As she'd gotten farther away from the party she'd looked closer to the carpets, while they were of a more resilient blend there was still a faint impression left by the passing footwork of people, and it appeared only one, a man had walked the path she was following.

The very faint impression of the boot was of muggle manufacture, rather than refined wizarding craftsmanship.

As Harry was the only person who would dare wear non-crafted footwear to such an occasion, she reasoned that this was the path to choose.

Daphne turned down another corridor and then stopped suddenly as she saw a man approach Harry.

"Stop where you are and do not move." He said in a hard tone, she could tell that he had raised his wand at Harry. Carefully, drawing her own she moved swiftly up behind him.

Harry turned around and looked at the man, raising an eyebrow.

"I wasn't really moving, I was more pondering my next move." He smiled gently looking to the man. They were about the same height, however he seemed to have spent many hours in whatever the wizarding world had instead of a gym working on his upper body.

"Why are you in here?" He asked, though it didn't really seem like a question.

"Just...looking around, looking for somewhere to powder-" He paused for the briefest of moments as he saw Daphne approach behind the man. "Room." She made eye contact with him.

Daphne looked at Harry as he finished talking. He made an extremely tiny movement, a shake of the head to her, though he made it seem like a shiver.

"Sorry about that, there seems to be a breeze, maybe from a window or a cellar."

"I need to escort you back to the party room and to the Baroness. She will be informed." The man took a small step forward.

"Oh." Harry said, not at all surprised. "I am very, very, very, sorry." His tone had changed, almost dramatically, it was calm, deathly calm and confident, it was a swift and almost dangerous shift in Harry's tone of voice.

"Sorry? Why are you sorry?"

"I was just so very intrigued by the architecture around here, these corridors all look the same," Harry paused, seemingly smirking to himself and totally ignoring the raised wand in his direction. "But there are such fine, fine, subtle differences."

"Fine differences..." The man repeated.

"Yes." Harry said gently.

"No." He took another small step forward, Daphne also walked with him step in step, staying outside of his peripheral vision.

"No one has seen such architecture around here, it's all fascinating, corridors. They're so very, very long."

"Long." The man repeated. Even though Harry seemed to be talking rubbish his voice had taken on a strangely hypnotic, if not mesmeric quality.

"Yes. I wonder what Master of the arts has crafted this. You know of Masters don't you."

"Masters..." The man repeated.

"Yes, and you will obey your Master, will you not."

"Master." The man repeated.

"Yes, and you will _obey__me_, _you__will__obey__me,__you__will__obey...me._" Harry's voice had taken on a commanding tone, it seemed as though he had grabbed the man's mind and body through merely a command of words and watching his facial expression. It was a hugely powerful act to do such a thing without the use it seemed of a wand and it was of no legillamancy that she knew of.

"I will obey, I will obey, I will obey..." Harry snapped his fingers.

"You will obey me, now stay silent until I snap my fingers again." Harry said in a rough tone and then beckoned her towards him.

"What are you doing here?" He muttered in a low tone of concern.

Daphne looked at him and back to the man. "I wished to see where you were."

"This is what I am doing, I'm surprised it took this long for someone to come after me, and they didn't start shooting straight away." There seemed to be some disappointment in Harry's voice, as though he was _looking__forward_ to being shot at.

Harry was different here, when he was 'working', passionate as he was when they were together but there seemed to be another part of his personality, bubbling beneath as well.

Harry spared a look at the man who was just standing there, as though waiting for orders, which, she considered for a moment _was_ what he was waiting for.

"You should head back the party Daphne, I...I'm not sure what I'm going to find." He said concern present in his voice once more.

"I am more than capable of looking after myself Harry Potter, there is much you don't know about me." Harry raised an eyebrow at her harsh tone.

"Very well. You can't blame me later then."

"I would never blame you Harry." Daphne put her hand gently on his shoulder, squeezing it gently. He smiled back at her and then his posture changed and it seemed he had returned to his harsher, more powerful stance.

He clicked his fingers. "There is a space hidden beneath this building, where is it and how is access gained to it?"

"Third panel down, there is a magical cupboard to transport visitors down." Everything was said in a monotone, except 'visitors' which had an odd inference to it.

"Good. Remain there." He said as he walked over to the wood panelled walls and counted along before standing in front of it looking at the panelled walls.

A revealing charm would likely show its location, but using one would probably reveal their location. Harry started to run his hands along the joins in the paneling before stepping back to look at it again and then reached up to a small nail at the top and pushed it. The whole wall slid across to reveal a darkened space.

"Ah..." He said as he walked back to her, rummaging in his pockets as he did so, removing a small cylindrical device with small handle on it and a small ring at the top.

"You should really go now Daphne, this is the point of no return." He said in a low tone.

She punched him in his arm that wasn't holding whatever the device was, it was muggle in origin, its aesthetics and how Harry was holding it suggested it was a weapon of some sort.

"Don't presume what I am capable of Harry." She hissed at him.

He looked at her for several long seconds. "Fine." He clicked his fingers again. "Take and hold this device."

"I obey, master." He intoned.

"Hold it tight, if the Baron, Baroness or others of your association approach you will drop the device and forget all knowledge of our conversation, do you understand?"

"I understand." Harry smiled as the man grasped the device tightly Harry pulled a pin out of it, pocketing it and then walked over to the cabinet.

Daphne followed him into the darkened cabinet.

"Huh. City of the Exxilons." He said to himself as he looked at the symbols that were flashing in almost grey on black tones. They were sort of rounded shapes, tables, U shapes, other approximations of symbols and letters.

Daphne had never heard of 'Exxilon' it could be something Mesopotamian, or Aztec, or as likely concerning Harry it was something alien.

Such a complicated concept, now, it entered her mind along with any other reasonable possibility. Daphne wondered how different her life might be, had they not found themselves together.

Far less interesting she fancied.

"I think I've seen some symbols I've heard of before." Harry explained to her, or possibly he was talking to himself, it was in that low tone of a slight mumble that he did sometimes when he was reading or considering a problem.

"This might feel a bit..."

Then the world went dark and her whole body spasmed as though she were being splinched a thousand times over.

"Daphne..." Harry said shaking her gently and shining the torch around them. They were very likely in the area he had seen through the Dalek eye piece, but he couldn't see anything around here, there was almost no light around here, but he didn't want to start searching for a lamp, torch or even a good old light switch until Daphne was awake.

"What...?" Daphne muttered.

"A very badly aligned transmat, it's the worst I've been through, even that dodgy Bandril one rotting in the channel was nicer than that."

Daphne blinked rapidly trying to clear her head. The words Harry was saying sounded like words but had absolutely no reasoning or sense to them.

"Here." He pressed a short thin device, it was a muggle 'torch light', it was on, but would flicker every so often.

"-hy not spells?" She said as he pulled her to her feet.

"Because." He paused stretching. "I don't want to cast spells until we know what we're down here with and because the effects of the transmat will take a few minutes to wear off and let us recover." He said shining his torch around. They were in a dull grey cellar.

Daphne looked around, there was a dark cupboard which looked the same as the one they had entered against one side of the cellar.

"Disabled. No way out." He chuckled momentarily to himself.

Daphne shone the torch back around and jumped slightly, she made a slight noise.

"What is it?" Harry called from one side of the cellar. The walls were he noted a modern concrete. Not of the older concrete he had seen used in some buildings and wizarding constructions which was more similar to Roman constructions than normal new concrete. This concrete appeared to be new, of the last 20 to 40 years. He smiled, Judith said he'd never use the book of construction comparisons he'd picked up about a year ago, he'd read it just to prove her wrong.

"Nothing, just some statues." Daphne said. "Ugly statues." A statue that had its eyes covered and was facing the wall and another a corner, which was strange, statues almost never looked like that, and why face a statue to the wall?

Harry's torch flickered again, he walked over to see what she had discovered, and failed to see the figure had turned around, though its face was still covered.

Daphne looked between the statues, they, she could have sworn, were facing the far corners of the room, but now, as Harry approached they were facing them, their eyes still covered.

"Harry...?" She said in a worried tone.

Harry tracked between the statues and then spun around as he heard something move, there were another three behind him...

Then their torches flickered for a moment.

"Oh...crap." Harry said, though his words totally underplayed the concerns of the situation. The statues had moved and they didn't look like they wanted to be friends.

Their torches flickered again. "Wands out!" Harry shouted.

"Lumos!" They both shouted quickly.

The cellar was suddenly bathed in spell light, they winced slightly from the sudden brightness after the darkness. Harry tucked his torch back into one of his pockets.

"Oh kay..." Harry said as he looked around. There was nothing, nothing in here that suggested any type of disposal or transport system, aside from the very dodgy transmat, which seemed to have trouble just transporting two people down from the surface.

"This is a bit of a bugger." He said.

"What are they?" Daphne said, mostly to herself, she was keeping her distance from the statues, which had their arms outstretched, they seemed to be seeking them out, somewhow.

"I don't know. I don't think we should touch them though."

"Have you, or your Doctor heard of them before?" Daphne asked taking her eyes off the statues to look at Harry.

"No." Harry said looking at her. As their eyes met, away from the statues something happened a noise and...

"Oh...fuck." Harry said. He spun away from Daphne. The statues had moved again. "I think we should keep them in our sights."

"How can they...how can they affect our spells they're not..."

"Wizards?" Harry asked trying to split his gaze between the statues.

"Yes."

"Maybe." Harry said as he backed backwards to the transmat. "I doubt that apparating out is an option." He said trying to sound casual.

"I could check for sure, but it would mean ending my spell." Daphne called backward to him. "What are you doing?"

"Come back here, but keep an eye on them." He said. Daphne walked backwards so they closer to the transmat. "I'm going to see if there's anything really wrong with it." He said thinking, he closed his eyes, in thought and then opened them almost immediately as he heard movement.

"It's not just light." Daphne whispered in realisation. "It's sight as well."

"Oh bugger." Harry said again. "Set fire to the ground and then cast your spell, the spell should feed off itself for a short while." Harry said as he re-extracted his torch turning it on and holding his wand high. It seemed his spell was only just reaching the edges of the group. "They're not just statues." He said switching his gaze around, _trying_ to look at them all, some seemed ready to attack or rather they seemed ready to attack when he _wasn__'__t_ looking, but when he was they seemed to have their eyes covered, as though they were crying.

"What?" Daphne her voice heightened. "Oh, they're-"

"Angels." Harry finished as he backed away from Daphne slightly so she could cast her spell and so he could keep all the statues in view.

Harry wracked his brain for anything he knew of statues, statues that could move when you didn't look at them. How would anything like that even come into being? Or more to the point _why_ would someone keep a bunch of them in the cellar? The latter was easier to answer, probably like keeping a pit or piranahas or lions to finish off your slaves or something.

Maybe someone's got a Dalek in the cupboard or a robot Yeti in the loo.

"Harry." Daphne's voice was calm, breaking him out of thought as he split his attention around the 6 statues.

She didn't look back at him, but she'd cast a lumos, furthering the lighted areas and allowing him to drop his arm down somewhat.

"There is heavy distortion of magical wards around here and a level of magical disruption I've never seen. If we tried to disapparate it is almost certain we would be ripped to pieces." Just to punctuate this their spells fluctuated, plunging them extremely briefly into darkness. When they concentrated on their spells the statues were closer.

Harry felt a rush of adrenaline and fought the urge to laugh, in situations like this laughing probably wasn't what was needed. So he swore instead, and then aimed a spell at one of the statues. "_Avada__Kedavra!__" _He said in a vicious tone.

Daphne flinched as Harry almost shouted the killing curse at the statue, the voracity with which he said it and the intensity that the spell had was as surprising as it was revealing about him, such ease with which he cast it meant he had used the spell several times in the past.

"How do you kill a stone?" He mused to himself.

"Should we try blasting them?" She asked, she had already dismissed the idea, with the level of the ceiling and the proximity to them, if they used a blasting curse the blow back and richochet would very likely injure them, any debris travelling at velocity had a high probability of killing them.  
"I thought of that, but the closeness to us..." He trailed off. "I'd say the walls are impervious to spells as well, the floor barely took the your spell." Harry tapped his foot on the floor, there was barely anything to suggest a spell had been cast on it.

"Can you keep the light up while I pry open the transmat panels?" He asked, squeezing her shoulder.

"Of course." She said, holding her wand aloft, bathing them in the spell's light. "I'll make sure to keep them all in sight." She added.

Harry moved backward to the transmat and looked around it. There were no controls, he suspected it was one way, or controlled from the surface.

But the guts of it had to be in here, the transmats he'd encountered and heard of usually had the guts on both ends, even if they didn't work in the same ways. Unless of course they functioned under the _Blake__'__s__7_ or _Star__Trek_ principle, then they were in a less fortunate situation.

Getting the main panels out of it was simple enough, but it looked like someone had pieced it together from dozens of different sources, with some human technology and some alien technology. It only had a passing resemblance to the ones he'd seen, and vaguely resembled some of the stuff he'd heard of from the Doctor and from Sarah and the metal idiot K9.

"If in doubt...reverse the polarity." He said to himself.

"What was that Harry?" Daphne called to him.

"Nothing, just talking to myself." He called back.

"Harry Potter, you will talk to me, not yourself. Have some decorum." Daphne called back, it made him smile.

"Of course Daphne, of course. We must maintain-" Then he let out a string of expletives as he touched a live wire and felt his heart speed up a bit. "Live wire." He said as he took some calming breaths and wondered how much air they had in here.

"I would like to berate you and say that I have never had anything this dangerous happened to me when I've gone to a party." Daphne mused.

"Oh, I'm sorry Daphne I-" Harry started as he proded a connection with his wand and hoped it wasn't magic-compatible.

"But it's not Harry, so don't start your worrisome concern for my safety, I am more than capable, and have been in situations of equal concern to this."

"Psychos in the bathroom and torture in the cellar?" Harry mused as he switched around two wires, the lights within the transmat brightened and flickered.

"Something like that, and blood is so hard to get out of clothing, I should never have worn white."

"Hence your choice of dark colours." Harry commented.

"Far more practical." Daphne responded.

Harry bit his lip as he traced the connections around, and then Daphne's spell and the transmat's lights flickered again, Harry grabbed his wand as they were plunged into darkness again.

"_Lumos!_" They were back into light again, but the statues were closer and even _uglier._

"This is not good. Why don't they talk. Some things will even shout at you, some will let you discuss the logistics of warfare, but these...silence."

"Maybe they're so powerful they don't need to talk, silence fells enemies as much as action, Fudge's silence likely cost time and people against Voldemort." Daphne mused.

"Maybe. They are getting stronger."

"And closer." She added. They were closer, none of them seemed to be crying or hiding their eyes now.

She changed a quick look to Harry who was turned away from her and looking at them.

"I want to test something." He said in a dangerously worried voice.

"What?" She asked, chills going down her back.

"I think, even blinking allows them to move." Harry replied. "Turn and focus on three of them. I want to test it."

"Harry is that wise?"

"No." He said simply. "But we need to know how to survive this."

She turned away and he very likely blinked as she heard the stone against concrete noise.

"Oh, bugger." Harry's voice was deflated.

"Your assumption was correct." She asked.

"Yes. So we can't blink." Harry said casting his eyes around. "Blink and they get closer."

"And if they get close enough to touch us then what?"

"Then, we're dead or...something else not good. I think this might be the way the others were-" He was cut off as the transmat buzzed, his rewiring smoking as it activated again, a figure appeared bathed in light and energy, and then several areas of the transmat exploded. Harry leaped forward and grabbed the figure who had transmatted in.

He, for the briefest moment thought that Doctor had come to their rescue. He couldn't have been more wrong.

"Draco fucking Malfoy." Harry exhaled and cursed again, the acrid smoke of the transmat hitting his lungs.

"Potter?" Malfoy winced looking up at him.

"You've transmatted into a world of trouble Draco." Daphne said again calmly, then hers and Harry's spells flickered and they were dropped into _almost_ darkness, the transmat was still smouldering.

"_Lumos!_" Harry and Daphne almost shouted. The statues were closer again.

"Can you stand Malfoy?" Harry asked as gently as he could given the circumstances.

Then there was a dull thud from above them.

"What was that?" Daphne asked curiously.

"A flash bang. It's probably stunned everyone." Harry explained quickly grabbing Malfoy under the shoulders. "You'll need to stand up Malfoy." Harry said trying to maintain his calm as he pulled Malfoy into a standing position while holding his wand and look at his fair share of the statues as a chill ran down his back as he chanced a look at the _remains_ of the transmat.

"What...Potter, get your hands off me!"

"Can you stand Malfoy...Draco." Harry said eventually.

"Yes." He said, but didn't sound good. "What...?" He looked around him at the statues.

"Look at them Draco and don't blink, blink and...I think they might kill us."

"Greengrass what are you talking about, they're just statues." Draco said taking out his wand and casting _lumos_. Intensifying their light a little more.

"Statues that were in the corners of the room when we got down here." Harry's voice was edging towards worried.

"What...what do you mean?" Draco asked, his eyes darting around. Then their collective spells flickered again, just a little this time.

But enough to illustrate the gravity of their situation.

"Oh Merlin." Draco said.

"Harry's been enlightening me on the amount of expletives are in his vocabulary, it's been most enlightening." Daphne deadpanned. "No wizarding related ones."

"It isn't surprising given Potter's love for muggles."

"Maybe two of us can make a difference. Malfoy, know how to cast the killing curse?" Harry asked with a smirk.

"Potter?" Malfoy asked incredulously.

They'd agreed to set fire to the surrounding floor and then try to 'kill' one of the statues.

"There must be some semblance of 'life'." Harry had reasoned.

He and Draco were now standing side by side.

"I never thought I would stand side by side ready to wield the killing curse with you Potter."

"I think as we are Draco ready to let death fly and probably standing not far away you can call me Harry."

Draco made an annoyed noise. "In three Potter?"

"Yep. Three, two, one." Harry counted down calmly.

"_Avada__Kedavra!_" Green light illuminated the cellar actually driving the statue back slightly.

Draco found himself somewhat amazed by Potter's experience with the killing curse, he wielded it with passion in a way not even the Dark Lord had. He wielded it like a tool, but one that he had used many times before. Like a knife or a bow. Potter held and continued the curse as one would to kill large beasts or to murder groups.

But he saw out the corner of his eye Potter shake his head and ended the curse.

Potter didn't seem as weakened as he felt by its use, another sign that Potter, for all that faith idiots like his friend Weasley put in him, Potter was well versed in death.

"Bugering hell." Harry swore, again, letting several more expletives fly as he cast _lumos_again.

"Ideas would be good."

They were stood backs to one another, but it seemed as though the statues were _absorbing_ their energy from their spells. She only knew of a few crystals and handful of extremely rare plants that could do that on the level that they were outputting.

It was a level that they couldn't keep up for too much longer, even Harry, who had more experience in these sorts of situations seemed to be faltering.

"They're getting stronger Potter."

"How come you came down here anyway?" Harry asked, breathing in deep of the air which had become far warmer since they'd started casting all manner of spells and Harry suspected it had also become thinner.

"I..." He trailed off. "Was curious for Greengrass and about what mess you were in Potter."

"Little old me."

"Trouble follows you, I wanted to know if I needed to leave the building. Or the country."

Harry flung another sticking charm at the statue, it seemed to have some success in halting its advance, briefly.

"Draco, how interesting, concerned." Daphne commented sounding somewhat out of breath.

"There are only so many people to engage in conversation with Greengrass." Malfoy raised his voice as Harry cast another spell. But then all the statues moved.

It seemed they'd all blinked at the same time, allowing their movement.

Then Daphne and Harry's _lumos_ spells flicked and they were plunged into darkness.

"_Lumos!__"_ Draco said, nothing happened. "_Lumos!_" He shouted even more panicked.

Harry and Daphne did the same; nothing. They could all hear the sound of stone against stone.

"Together," Harry shouted. "_LUMOS!__" _

The cellar was bathed in flickering spell light...and also the statues faces barely inches from their faces.

"Oh Merlin and Morgaine." Draco whispered.

"Arseing hell." Harry said.

Daphne said something but it was muffled as their collective spells failed for the final time.

Harry felt something grab onto his shoulder and the world exploded in pain and light.

Draco felt something grab onto his shoulder and then the world exploded outward in a rush of air, light and at the very upper limit of experience; pain. He wasn't sure if he screamed.

Daphne heard Harry's shout and Draco's scream as what had to be the statues latch onto her shoulder. She may have shouted or screamed, she wasn't sure as her senses were overwhelmed, air and light seemed to disappear and pressure and dissipate around her, pain exploded through her senses.

-/

It was a field somewhere. Midday.

The sun was shining and there was a brisk wind blowing across the countryside, there was nothing, save for a few butterflies.

Then there was...a nothing, an anti-flash, and appearance. Appearances.

Dragged, if they were able, kicking and screaming, through the time vortex, dumped, back onto the Earth. Unawares they lay unconscious.

They were not alone.

-/

A/N:

_Cue theme music. Though no next time trailer, this is like old school Doctor Who, there's just a cliffhanger and no next time. _

_Apologies for the lateness of this chapter, I did in fact finish it before November. But didn't have time to edit. In November, as with last year I did NaNoWriMo, and it left me not really feeling like editing this while writing 2000+ words a day on my original fiction._

_I was going to keep this as one long chapter. But decided to stop here as it's already 14,000+ words long. It will hopefully only be two parts (hopefully), it may run to three, but hopefully I'll keep the next chapter in line and it won't be too long and rambling (hah! As reviewers will know I do tend to ramble in responses). _

_There is a little more coarse language in this chapter than usual, I believe I'm still within this story's rating as it's not gratuitous or all that offensive. But I think it is appropriate to the ages of these people. _

_Harry Pearce is from the TV show Spooks. _

_Other notes; Operativnaya Gruppa Rasvedkoy Obyedinyonnih Natsiy, I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, it's the Russian division of UNIT, NUIT is the French division of UNIT. UNIT Broadsword is their intelligence division. ICIS is Internal Counter-Intelligence Service. _


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter 36**

Sunlight.

Grass.

Sunlight.

Grass.

Sunlight, heat.

Sunlight, heat, grass.

Grass.

Heat, light.

Air.

Air.

Air.

Draco groaned sitting up from a fetal position and breathed a great huge lungful of air.

Air.

He breathed another lungful, every muscle in his body twisting, aching. It was a thousand times worse than the Cruciatus.

Air.

Light.

Heat.

Grass.

Air. It was his only thought.

Then his stomach twisted and he had the greatest need to vomit, for a moment he thought he was.

Then he realised he wasn't alone.

But his senses were still overwhelmed.

It was like recovering, not just from the Cruciatus but a multiple other curses the Dark Lord liked to throw around.

Air.

Light.

Grass.

Draco forced himself to think, think through the pain, through the twisting of his senses.

Think.

Concentrate.

Air.

Light.

Sun. Sun. Sun and Light. He was outside.

Air.

Grass. Somewhere in his awareness he realised he was sitting, kneeling on grass.

Another part of his consciousness realised he had known this fact for some time, but he'd pushed it aside.

Knowing the basics, knowing you could breathe. That was one of the tenants of surviving the Dark Lord's "moods". His father had seen a man die through lack of air, watching as the man convulsed on the floor, his father never knew why.

You did not question the Dark Lord. But all that was in the past.

Air.

Draco carefully opened his eyes.

LIGHT.

Squinting. He took in his surroundings as they resolved into focus.

Grass.

There was a figure, who seemed to be mirroring what he was doing, the figure was female. She was wiping her mouth.

Vomit.

The smell of stomach acids.

It hadn't just been his imagination, someone was, someone had been vomiting.

He had also, almost. You learnt not to do so, the Dark Lord would punish those who did not have the disposition to serve.

Light.

Grass.

Heat.

Sunlight.

Draco blinked, there was another figure, this one was pulling himself up. It seemed to be causing him great pain.

Draco knew not to move yet.

Pain.

Light.

Air.

Grass.

Heat.

Draco took another deep breath of air, holding it in his lungs as he felt his arms begin to tingle, the signs of some sort of torture.

Light. Air. Grass. Heat. It was sunny. He could feel his senses coming back into alignment, he could understand everything in sequence, he didn't have to force himself to take each thing that entered his mind as one.

Understanding it, and forcing his body to acclimatize.

Harry had not felt like this before, never. The pain had been excruciating.

The adrenalin rush was amazing and he could still feel it tingling throughout his body.

There was pain, like a thousand Cruciatus curses had ripped through his body.

He realised he was kneeling.

On grass.

He was outside, on grass.

There was sunlight, a short breeze.

He was alive.

Then the last few moments came crashing back like being hit by a yellow tow truck.

They were back to back. Daphne and _Draco_ and...then pain.

Something had grabbed him.

Grabbed them and then pain.

He had had the dull need to vomit, an after effect of the whatever had happened. He'd only had water so far. He forced himself not to.

He burped. With chunks and spat them out, cringing. That wizarding sparkling water was far too fizzy. Someone should speak to their supplier.

Harry almost giggled to himself and realised he was still on an adrenalin high. He need to use it rather than what he was doing. Thinking about catering.

He grit his teeth and pushed himself up so he was standing.

He still had his eyes closed.

Photosensitivity was often a result of the Cruciatus, that said he'd often been tortured in dark places, so it wasn't really an issue.

As he stood he continued to grit his teeth he could feel his muscles biting, groaning, tort and tensioned.

But then he was standing upright and cautiously opened his eyes, squinting.

He realised there were two figures in front of him.

One had it seemed just finished vomiting and another was looking up at him, also squinting.

Daphne sat up after having emptied her stomach on the grass in front of her.

She was supremely regretting eating a small supper before attending the soirée.

While the Baron and Baroness' food was usually delectable it was easier to target people for 'special treatment' than with drinks, and she had thought to be prepared in case Harry's activities lead to difficulties.

She had for the last few minutes been ignoring the pain, the spasms, the tension throughout her body. She had pushed awareness of those things to the side as she focused on the pressing issue of vomiting and not choking on what was coming up.

She had only undergone the Cruciatus on a few occasions, on one to truly understand it and therefore wield it more professionally.

As she breathed in and out of the cool fresh air she allowed her mind to relax, relaxing her hold on the pain in her body, she gasped slightly at the sudden in-rush of pain.

She opened her eyes, forcing her body to adjust to more of her sensory perceptions. This had worked for her in the past, though in others it tended when confronted like this to make them black out.

She could manage the pain, she just needed...

Focus.

Light exploded into her eyes and she was forced to squint and look around.

There was a figure, standing tall, a long coat flapping around him. Harry. She thought though she didn't smile, that required too much of her already taxed body's abilities.

She looked around, away from the small puddle of vomit.

Between herself and Harry was another figure.

He was looking at her.

Draco.

Draco Malfoy.

They had survived.

Survived those unmoving, yet not statues.

But where?

Harry realised he was grinding his teeth and stopped, he hated going to the dentist, even though Hermione's parents gave him a special rate.

Though he continued to grit his teeth. Which was different, more or less.

The light was becoming less and less intense and the heat from the sun was easing his muscles.

He continued to look around as his eyes adjusted fully to the bright light, they were in the middle of a field. Not a field. The were out somewhere with no boundaries and a little bit of a mountain. More of a hill.

As he looked around something caught his eye some ways beyond Draco and Daphne and he felt another sudden gust of adrenaline. It wasn't quite the full in rush he was used to, but it did awaken himself even more and he felt his fight or flight response kick up another gear _with_ overdrive.

There was a grey statue, broken, but it seemed _recovering_.

Or something. He wasn't sure. But it was there.

Whatever had happened, whatever temporal transference _if_ that was what had happened, _if_ they weren't in some alternate universe or shared delusion then it had gone through with them.

Harry Pearce's friend hadn't said anything about...well anything, but if these things grabbed you once they could again.

Though it wasn't moving, hadn't moved, even as he blinked and there'd been enough time for it to attack while they'd been unconscious.

Harry tried to say something, but his voice caught in his throat, it had just become not all that painful to breathe. Speaking, except for screaming or croaking in agony he knew from experience was something you had to wait and recover through.

Harry forced himself to step forward, his muscles, despite the effects of adrenalin screaming at him in pain.

Draco watched as Potter tried to step forward.

Idiot. Draco thought to himself.

After whatever torture they'd been through you shouldn't be doing any extreme movements like walking yet.

You had to allow the body time to recover. Draco had thought himself good for kneeling, having the _stamina _to be upright.

Potter displaying his _experience_ with being tortured no doubt. Though there was a distinctly pained expression on his face.

Which served him right for not waiting like a _sane_ intelligent person would.

Daphne watched, unable to stand, her legs still cramping as Harry, obviously in great pain walked forward to them.

At first she thought it was to assist them, but the pain that he was moving through was unlike anything.

As Draco was still kneeling she suspected it was causing Harry a large amount of pain to move when he should be remaining still.

She watched as he, with great effort raised his arm to gesture behind herself and Draco.

Harry almost cried out, lifting his arm to gesture behind Daphne and Draco, the effort was _utter_ agony, he could almost feel his muscles spasm through the effort to just lift enough to gesture.

Draco watched with a small amount of amusement as Potter put himself through a great deal of pain to lift his arm.

But then a chill passed down his back, Potter had a look of _terror_ on his face, intermixed with the pain.

There was something that clearly worried Potter that he could see but was behind them.

Draco craned his neck around to look. It was just within his vision.

A grey statue.

_The_ grey statue, broken but it seemed still _alive_ or something.

Draco felt his heart increase beating as he focused his efforts on standing.

Daphne watched as Draco craned to look around and she also mirrored his movements and realised what had made Draco suddenly double his efforts to stand.

The statue. The angel, whatever it was, it was here. Where ever here was.

She forced herself to focus on that fact and not the bleak pain that was cutting through her body as she pushed herself up.

Harry forced large steps as Draco and Daphne seemed to understand what they were still facing.

By the time he had slowly reached them Daphne was very weakly standing and Draco was still moving through the efforts of it.

He took Daphne in one arm linking arms with her tightly.

She looked at him panicked as she realised what he was about to do.

Then he took Draco, gently but firmly and pulled him up.

Draco didn't quite fight, he didn't have the energy to it seemed and then he concentrated and there was a loud POP and an inrush of air as he side-along apparated both of them.

Draco watched as he, like Potter grit his teeth, his father had said this was _not_ good method, but better than grinding ones teeth which was not something one should do. Excessive grinding effected one's ability to chew and speak, if one did so for long enough, and service to the Dark Lord was a decidedly long affair.

Draco watched as Potter took Daphne into his arm in a locked embrace, and then he realised what Potter was doing.

He tried to object when Potter took him, rather gently, though firmly. Both were surprising.

But Potter was insane if he thought he had the energy or ability to apparate both–

His thought was cut off.

Them.

Draco's body shuddered, though not as much as it should have done given that one person had side along apparated two people. And also the effects on individuals following side along apparating.

Though it was usually far worse for the person instigating the apparition.

Potter gently lowered him, and Daphne to the ground. Potter smiled reassuringly at him and then seemed to remember who he was smiling at.

Potter's discomfort made him smirk, just slightly and mostly to himself as he sat gently onto the grass.

Harry felt amazingly not too bad. It seemed the apparating of the three of them had loosened his muscles, which was something of a change. While he had become better at side along apparating it was still a little bit of effort.

Maybe it was something to do with the excess energy they were carrying from the time transference.

That was part of the reason why he'd chosen here. He'd apparated them to Victoria Embankment Gardens, next to the statue of Robert Burns. From here they were some ways from the path and he would be able to see the river and from there, the Eye. Hoping against hope they'd not travelled very far, temporally wise.

Daphne tried smiled at Harry as he lowered her and Draco onto the grass. She was feeling a lot better than she thought she should, given whatever it was they had been through.

She could feel her arms and legs tingling as feeling returned and the knots and pain eased out of them.

Harry had completed something of a feat apparating all three of them, something not many wizards attempted.

Side along was performed, for people some people who could not apparate like young children and those who had not passed any assessment.

There was also group apparition; together aiming for the same location, but that used one's own abilities.

She had not apparated and she did not believe Draco had been a participant in the apparition. Harry had completed the process on his own, and seemed not much worse from it.

Looking around she instantly knew where she was; Victoria Embankment Gardens. The statue of the muggle poet Robert Burns was beside them. She had met certain individuals in this park on occasion. To meet to discuss terms, sometimes to receive information and other things.

It was far better to meet in a muggle park or other open space and discuss things rather than any wizarding environment. Muggles very rarely listened to any conversation around them. Too busy with things in their ears or their mobile communication phones or other things, their muggle lives.

Harry was feeling decidedly more chipper as he walked slowly down towards the road where he could see along the river.

The chipper feeling did not last as he came to the road and could see the Hungerford Bridge and beyond it...no London Eye.

Then there were the cars on the road.

He recognised the styles and not because he coveted them, not because he'd seen them in magazines.

He'd seen those styles, those mixes of cars before.

"Oh fuck. Oh fuckity fuck." Harry said to no one in particular as a dawning realisation came to him.

He started to look around for a bin, or a stray newspaper or something.

He didn't need convincing, but he knew the two who were resting would.

"Oh Merlin...buggering Dalek bumps." He said again to himself, he was after all the only one who realised how much shit they were in. Especially how much shit _**he**_ was in.

Harry drew a breath of the fresher than 21st century air, air he'd breathed before. Air that he was breathing at this moment and tried to compose himself.

That failed miserably, so he swore a bit more until he was out of breath again and took another composing breath of air, trying not to think about where else he could be taking that breath.

Draco watched as Greengrass withdrew a silver flask from inside a small purse and unscrewed the cap taking what appeared to be a relieving drink. Then she cleared her throat and offered him the flask.

"Here, if your throat feels like mine Draco." She said still sounding relatively calm despite the events of the past few...it felt like hours but mentally he knew that barely an hour had passed, if that.

Sipping the flask carefully revealed it contained chilled rainwater, from the Greengrass estate's collection tanks if he wasn't mistaken, he had come to know the distinct flavour profile to their estate during his brief association with that family, seemingly they preferred to gather water from the sky. Unlike the Malfoy estate's aquifer and spring that had been held by his family since the construction of his family estate.

"Thank you Greengrass." He said as soon as he was able, passing the flask back to her.

As she took it he looked around, taking in their surroundings more closely than before.

"Robert Burns."

"I'm sorry?" Draco looked over to Greengrass.

"That statue, the river Thames is down there." She motioned away from them.

"A site of one of your _fascinating_ business deals?"

Greengrass smiled at him. "It is far easier to meet in a muggle park and discuss wizarding affairs than to meet in a wizarding location and set up any number of spells in order to discuss matters of the day."

Draco accepted that justification, the muggles were so obsessed with their lives they barely noticed anything magic. Only those seeking to find things were the ones that saw magic, others however did not.

Not that he found himself wandering the muggle streets very often, their modes of transport, their seemingly _constant_ talk into their _communication devices_ their decision to **eat** while they walked. It was all too much to bare, the incivility of it all.

"Where do you think Potter's gone to?"

Daphne looked down towards the river and pointed. "Down there. I wonder why."

"Shouldn't you know Daphne? You are sharing his bed" He watched her. "Or he yours?" He wondered aloud and smirked. "No, you his." Her sister had been averse to him sharing her bed, but not the reverse.

"Harry and I may have sex Draco," She said casually. "that does not allow me an insight into everything Harry is thinking."

"It seems he's decided to return to us." Draco said as they saw a figure walking back up towards them.

"Something's wrong." An alarmed tone was in Greengrass's voice.

Draco watched how Potter was walking and his face, both his stance and his facial expression pointed towards something that had disturbed him greatly.

Harry sat down between the two, Draco didn't seem to be annoyed to be sitting on the grass, which was interesting, but probably pointed towards tiredness rather than his poncy attitudes. Harry pushed the thought out of his mind and he pushed his coat out the way, the newspaper that he'd tucked into a pocket had been poking him in the leg.

He tried to look positive but the two people that he was sitting opposite were probably not the best people to try to reassure. They didn't know anything yet and didn't know how far up the creek they were without a paddle.

"So what's the matter Potter you look like you've just discovered Weasley's head on a pike." Draco drawled.

Harry raised an eyebrow and before he could stop himself said. "If it was the mad cow Wealsey I'd be applauding."

Draco's eyes widened. "You are full of surprises Potter."

Daphne however was watching him closely. "You're worried about something."

"Yes." Harry exhaled. "I need you two" He paused and looked directly at Draco, holding his gaze for a moment. "You especially, to listen and believe me and what I'm telling you is the absolute truth."

Daphne nodded. Draco watched him for several moments before nodding.

"We're in the past." Harry said and removed a newspaper he'd found in a bin.

Draco picked up the newspaper with shaking hands.

Daphne looked over as Draco picked up the muggle paper, it was, judging by the quality and condition of the paper only a day if that old. But it was quite clearly not something transfigured, not something mocked up, it was real, they were in the past. Their past, Harry's past, quite literally in his case.

There were minor changes in his body language, he had become far more alert, worry, concern, something else were playing across his face. It was worrisome to see him this alert.

Draco felt his heart rate jump several beats. A great uncle of his fathers had died in such a way, upon finding muggles had purchased land bordering on one of his estates. His accountant informed him.

Draco chuckled. He'd never thought that funny until now, death by accountant.

Someone grabbed his arm and he realised it was Potter who was doing it.

"Draco." Potter was using his name _and_ was speaking calmly, the bastard, to be calm at a moment like this.

"Draco." Harry repeated. It looked like Malfoy was having some sort of breakdown or hysteria. Malfoy'd probably call it a momentary lapse or something.

"You're touching me Potter." Malfoy said in deathly calm voice.

"I need you to stay calm, don't go anywhere so I can explain why we're in a lot more dragon shit than you think we are." Harry said looking at Malfoy's face, not really trying to hypnotise him, only because Malfoy was possibly ready to trust him and hypnotising people didn't really endear trust in you once you did things like that.

"Where would I have to go?" Malfoy muttered to himself and then looked at Harry and to Daphne.

"You know something, you're not reacting, even you Greengrass should be disturbed by this." He paused. "You are." He sneered. "Not as much as I am."

Daphne just looked over at Harry.

Both pure blood wizards looked at Harry, who sighed.

"I need to give you the background before you'll understand." He paused looking at Draco. "Please let me finish, then you can start." Harry said in a tired voice looking at Malfoy.

"Very well Potter. I'm sure this is all your fault."

"Very probably, but it's probably for the best." Harry said, although he was still thinking things through working through why they had ended up here.

"I'm sure you're aware that a couple of years ago my brief relationship with Ginny the-" Harry stopped himself from finishing the sentence, then shrugged and said it anyway. "Mad cow Weasley."

Draco's face briefly brightened and seemed genuinely amused by his turn of phrase.

"Are you aware she formed a group with other disassociated groups?"

Draco nodded slowly. "There was mention of a dragon and some village or something. I don't follow cultists and groups like that Potter." He threw Harry an odd slightly knowing look.

Harry nodded quickly. "That group was something of a hard line wizarding cultural group."

"Beliefs?" Malfoy asked, seemingly interested.

"Aliens, or the denial thereof." Harry said watching Malfoy, he had a mostly neutral expression.

"Aliens." Malfoy repeated, rubbing his arms as though he were cold.

"Extraterrestrial beings, those not of this Earth etc." Harry said with a dismissive wave, though still watching Malfoy.

Malfoy looked at him. "There have been rumours that you had gone totally mad, indulging in _deviant_ experiences Potter. Not that I followed your boring life much since our parting at Hogwarts."

"Of course not. Just asking about him all night." Daphne commented, seemingly enjoying Malfoy's statement.

Harry looked over at Daphne and then looked back to Malfoy.

"Aliens do exist Draco." Malfoy just watched him.

Potter didn't look like he was insane, more versed in the dark arts, more violent and far calmer than he had known him to be at Hogwarts.

But not insane.

Everyone knew of the 'aliens' perpetrated by the Ministry.

The muggles would believe anything put into their stupid little heads, so they could continue on with their lives.

But Potter's statement, and more to the point Greengrass' lack of reaction to this revelation was interesting. Or it could be that Greengrass was sharing more than Potter's bed, perhaps she was buying into his delusions.

Malfoy discounted that possibility. Her family and she herself were strong minded. During the last war and the war before that, one that seemingly he was now in the middle of they had not been moved by the Dark Lord's ministrations.

That made them powerful. It was part of the reason he had been drawn to her sister, her playful attitude and the power she wielded.

They were also not a family to move on something like this quickly.

"You've seen something." He said to Greengrass.

Daphne raised an eyebrow, it had taken Draco longer than she'd thought to reach that conclusion.

"Yes." She said simply.

"Might I continue Draco, now that you've ascertained that I'm not just a deviant?" Harry asked leaning back putting his hands behind him onto the soft grass before sitting up straight again.

Malfoy nodded slowly.

"A year or two ago Ginny gathered her group and they were flying over Cardiff." Harry paused as Malfoy and Daphne's body language shifted, he'd not told Daphne precisely where the temporal transference had occurred, but thought he'd better give a more detailed explanation of some things given where they were.

"Cardiff?" Malfoy asked slowly.

"Yes, there's a space-time rift there."

"The Blaidd Drwg Rift." Malfoy said.

"Blaidd Drwg." Harry repeated. He'd heard that before.

"It's Bad Wolf in Welsh." Daphne said, her voice cool.

"Yes." Harry said pondering to himself. It probably meant something.

"So the 'Mad Cow'" Malfoy started seemingly relishing and being amused by his nickname for the psychotic bitch of the Weasley family. "Flew into the Blaidd Drwg Rift. She's not the first to lead a suicide cult."

"Really?" Harry asked, surprised, he'd not heard of any wizarding suicide cults.

"Harry focus." Daphne said lightly, somewhat amused.

"Ginny and her followers didn't die, they ended up here in the 70s, bent on committing cultural terrorism attempting to alter wizarding society to be even more against the idea of aliens than it is at the moment." Malfoy was watching him, but he pressed on. "Whilst looking through some files I discovered proof that I had gone back in time. I followed her back here and..." Harry trailed off for a moment.

Malfoy was watching him. Harry breathed in. "I followed her back to this period to eliminate all of the people whom she'd brought from the future."

Malfoy listened as Potter finished. There was no need to explain what _eliminate_ meant, and Potter meant every word of it, and it was spoken in such a casual way, _not_ something he expected of Potter.

It was a side he'd not seen to Potter, although he did seem to wield the killing curse with much ease.

He snorted. "What must Weasley and Granger think of you Potter."

Harry shrugged. "Hermione knows the basics, Ron..." He shrugged again. In some ways he now had a more honest relationship with Malfoy than he did Ron, what an amazingly strange world he lived in. Maybe there really was a world that existed where, he suppressed a shudder, Malfoy and he were in a _relationship_. Suddenly he felt a bit sick.

"Harry are you alright?" Daphne asked.

He nodded. "I just had a disturbing thought. Unrelated to this situation."

The two wizards looked at him oddly. "Nothing to worry about, just a friend of mine's disturbing sense of humour intruding into reality."

"If this is reality Potter." Draco commented as he plucked the grass before him rubbing it between his fingers.

Potter just watched him.

"So what Potter, how did you return to our 'present' when you came here before?" He asked watching Potter he now seemed uncomfortable, which he still enjoyed to see, even if they were here and now.

Harry shifted. "I had assistance from an associate who has temporal abilities far in advance of what wizards can achieve." Harry said carefully and then added before Malfoy could say anything. "Abilities that won't be returned to him for some time," Malfoy looked at him. "It's complicated."

"Complications are something that we seem to abound in today Harry." Daphne commented.

"Yes." Harry muttered.

Draco picked up the muggle newspaper again, feeling the paper between his fingers once more and studying the date, there was another trickle of sweat down his back. He felt it trickle down his spine and his somewhere lower down in his pants, the calm, panicked sweat one felt when the facts were laid before one. It was interesting to feel such experiences, he had thought they were beyond him. Taking a breath he questioned Potter, as much of an impudent individual that he was, he was more knowledgeable it seemed in this situation than himself or Greengrass so not even the woman he was bedding seemed to know all the details of his _elimination_ of the 'Mad Cow', though he did have to hand it to Potter, some names were appropriate. "So Potter, what are we to do now?" He watched Potter's expression, it seemed he had been thinking to himself about this situation and his question had interrupted him. Draco did not presume to think that Potter's mind was as empty as the Weasley who had become enamored with Granger, but he did seem to have some flights of fancy in his mind. That at least could be placed down to rushes induced by uses of power or possibly, slightly more vulgar, the adrenaline rush of danger that they had all experienced thus far.

Harry looked up, somewhat surprised that Draco...he cursed himself, mentally. Malfoy had asked him that question. But it was one that he had been thinking about since he had worked out where, or more to the point _when_ they had arrived.

The list of where they couldn't go was a lot longer than where they could.

UNIT was out.

He couldn't really remember the details of exactly what would happen if he met himself, the Doctor had a fairly casual attitude to him meeting himself "in the direst of circumstances', but he was a Time Lord, the temporal energies and whatever involved wouldn't harm him much. But Harry wasn't a Time Lord and he was sort of sure meeting himself would rip a hole in the universe, or in space-time or something. At the least it'd probably wipe out his timeline around this point a bit.

Aside from meeting himself he couldn't call in the Brigadier, mostly because he was quite sure he'd mention it to his younger self.

Even though he didn't remember it, it could still happen. Probably.

Nor could he meet Jo especially after he'd gone to such lengths not to meet her the first time around.

And then...it was buggering annoying that the Doctor had travelled with so many people, and so many of them were from a point after the 1970s.

Sarah he wouldn't meet until the probably the late 70s or the 80s for her and the 90s for him and then again the 2000s again for both of them.

"Time travel is complicated." He muttered to himself. "No, that wasn't my answer Draco." He said as Malfoy looked at him. "Just thinking to myself who I can call on."

Malfoy at least looked surprise at this suggestion. "It is interesting Potter that you think there is anyone in this era of our history that you would know and that might assist us in this devil of a situation."

Harry smiled darkly. "You would be surprised who I know at this moment." He paused. "Just no one I know who's not met me yet..." He trailed off as an idea came to him. Two people whom he had been meaning to meet once more, in the present, or rather the future.

Their days of TARDIS travel would be behind them now, according to the Doctor they had returned in 1965.

Daphne watched as Harry started to smile, seemingly he had uncovered an idea from his memories, if it were extra-temporal in nature it was likely that it was something, or perhaps someone related to the mysterious Doctor, whose face and manner changed throughout his knowing of Harry.

"I think we'll need to find a phone box so I can get an address. I think I've thought of someone who can render us assistance, and an idea of where to get further help to get us to our own time." Harry said with a grin, pushing himself up into a standing position and offering his hands to both herself and Draco.

-/

Barbara turned the envelope over in her hands again.

The paper was rough and old, it had been _made_ rather than manufactured. The envelope was folded and it was sealed with a wax seal, the emblem on the seal she could not understand, it seemed to be a series of circles, though it meant nothing to her. She had wanted to open it, except for the note that said in stylish hand writing_ Open today 2:47 pm._

Ian had said she was being superstitious and silly.

But here they were both sitting her waiting, tea standing in their cups steam coming out as they waiting, looking at the clock.

Ian leaned back, his work at the RAF's technical collage had ended early in the week, some disturbance had meant they were all on a break for the rest of this week.

It was, though, strange to be in the house without John. He was barely 15 minutes down the road with Barbara's parents, he liked to visit and they liked having him. He'd joked they were worried that he and Barbara were going to disappear again and take their grandson with them this time.

But there'd be none of that, they'd not seen hide nor hair of the Doctor since their departure, outside of the little things that had happened; his tax disc being paid, his car having been towed, the rents on their flats also paid.

It had to have been the Doctor, they didn't know anyone else who would have done that. Investigating just showed that a Dr John Smith, who may have worked something related to the Royal Scientific Club. But that was it, that and the money a bank account had been left in his and Barbara's name, not a large amount, but enough, another gift from the Doctor they assumed.

It hadn't been enough to buy this somewhat large, sometimes he thought too large house, but it had been enough to wisely invest, based on the knowledge he and Barbara had encountered when they were in the 1980s with the Doctor and Susan.

Barbara had worried about them using their foreknowledge but, it was their knowledge, gained through time travel yes, but he wasn't about to try and invent the Sinclair C5 or anything like that.

"You know this is silly." Ian said taking the envelope out of Barbara's hands and looked at it closely again. And then lifting it to his nose to sniff it.

"It smells ancient doesn't it?" Barbara said with a knowing smile he nodded. It took him back, far back to their days of TARDIS travel.

"You know we could just open in, ignore what it says one the back." He passed it back to her. "It could be someone messing around."

"Look where thoughts like that got us." She warned with a smile.

"One of the best mistakes I've made in my life that junkyard." He chuckled looking across at her making her smile.

"We've waited this long." She looked over at the clock. There was only about 10 more minutes to go.

"Yes. We can wait." Ian said as he took a sip of tea.

Then the door bell rang, making them both jump.

They looked at one another and then looked at the envelope as though it was to blame.

"I'd better go and see who that is." Barbara said rising from the table.

"I can-" But Barbara silenced him with a look, she liked to answer the door.

They'd apparated to the street, not side-along apparition, though Potter seemed capable of it, merely holding one another's hand to ensure they arrived at the same spot.

One might think Potter didn't trust him. Draco thought with a smirk. Were he in Potter's position he would likely not be trusting.

The house was appreciable for muggles, a good sized house. Not as large or as fitting as any wizarding household. But a well sized retreat in rather small village. It was set on sizeable grounds.

"Well, well, well." Was all Potter said as they walked up the drive way. There were two muggle cars sitting under shelter to one side. They all looked like boxes on wheels compared to carriages.

Ringing the bell he asked Potter again how he knew these people.

"In my childhood." He said again.

"Which is in the future." He said needlessly, they were all desperately aware of their situation.

"Yes, but it's also in their past." He looking back from the door.

Then the door opened to reveal a woman standing there, surprised to find three people standing at her doorway.

"Hello Barbara, it's been a long time." Potter said warmly, and with affection.

Barbara openned the door, having heard voices talking behind it to find two young men and a young woman standing there before her.

The lead man had deep green eyes and black hair, the second man had amazing blonde almost white hair and the woman brown and cautious eyes.

"Hello Barbara" Said the man with green eyes. "It's been a long time." The voice and the eyes set off memories in the back of her mind.

"Ian!" She shouted, not quite in a panic, but in just surprise.

Ian watched as Barbra sat their three guests down. It was, though he couldn't believe it. Harry Potter.

A boy who wouldn't be born for more than 9 years, a boy whom both he and Barbara had, would know in the future. A boy, now a man who should be in the future.

"I suppose this is all a bit of a shock to you." Harry said looking between the two former school teachers who were looking very well, and hadn't changed since he'd met them all those years ago.

"Just a bit Harry, how-" Ian was cut off.

"That's a little bit complicated." He said.

Draco listened as he looked around the room that they were in, this drawing room or library was filled with books, and trinkets and a muggle television plus some other things that he didn't recognise. It was however respectable for a muggle, nothing too untoward.

Potter gave a quick explanation of how they were rendered here, omitting almost everything concerning the Mad Cow and his other existence here, something, while he was not having trouble fathoming was somewhat troubled by it. He had knowledge of time turner use, and it was something not to be triflled with, it was according to his father extremely dangerous, something even the Dark Lord did not use.

While Potter was talking the muggle woman Barbra was playing around with an envelope in her hands. It was almost wizarding in its construction. A properly constructed envelope and a seal made of a rich blue wax with a seal pressed into it.

She seemed to be waiting for something, a time to open the letter.

As Potter finished telling his edited highlights of what had befallen him he spoke.

"What is that letter that seems to have you so preoccupied?" He asked, trying to prevent himself from sounding too curious, though Greengrass noticed and seemed most amused that he was so annoyed by it.

"Just a letter, with instructions to open it after a time." Ian said offhandedly.

"Which has passed." Ian said raising an eyebrow.

"If you don't mind." Barbara said as she rose from the chair she was sitting on retrieving a letter opener for a small side table.

Barbra pulled out the folded piece of paper. There were only seven words and signed with initials. All in the same hand writing as the writing on the back.

"Well?" Ian asked. Barbra passed it to him.

_Don't blink at the angels. _

_Remember Hyspero. RS._

_Flashback...some time ago..._

He and Barbara were relaxing in their separate TARDIS sleeping quarters after the particularly harrowing series of what Ian had termed in his mind as 'adventures', though Barbara called what happened outside of the TARDIS doors as something somewhat more dramatic.

The dangers and delights thus far experienced were beyond his wildest dreams, he had in fact never thought of any of the things he had seen. How could he?

Yet he still longed for the human contact, the human things, it had been a great relief to be on Earth, seeing that young man Harry Potter, being able to have a pint of beer even.

Then they were away from there, places anew, experiences, danger, history. Relaxing here in the TARDIS was good, easy, the noise of the ship gently coaxing him to rest, he did sleep in the ship, though it seemed sleep came easier to Barbara than for him. Although they could both catch sleep where ever it might be, beside a lake of mutations, around caravans the noise of the desert and the horses the only noises around them.

Or in an Aztec barracks, pondering the battles to be fought in the morning the dangers, the bruises to avoid the next day.

Secretly he enjoyed it, he did long for home, his home, of the 1960s England, but this was an adventure beyond anything, above and beyond any human could experience. Sometimes Barbara wanted to talk about it, and sometimes not.

He was just drifting towards the edge of sleep when the whole ship seemed to jump, like hitting a pothole in a road, but magnified thousands of times, for several moments he thought he was weightless, gravity seemingly had nothing on him and the other items within his room and then it returned slamming him back to the ground and to the day bed he used to catch some sleep on.

And then the lights in the ship flicked off, to be returned by what he imagined was 'emergency lighting', everything was lit in a poor version of the previous bright light.

He also became aware of a bell tolling throughout the ship, it seemed sad, like a single church bell tolling throughout the ship, echoing.

Rushing over to the door his first thought was Barbara, they had rooms that were opposite each other, this was in addition to the common sleep area they sometimes used that was closer to the controls.

He must have opened his door at the exact same time as Barbra did.

"Ian?" She asked clearly terrified. Nothing like this even at the worst moments in the ship had anything happened that was comparable before.

"I know. Let's look for the Doctor." He said closing the door to his room only to see the Doctor walking swiftly down the corridor.

"Ah, Chesterton, Barbara, come along quickly now." He said barely slowing down, his face concerned, though not as worried as Susan, who was trailing him appeared.

"What's going on Doctor?" Ian said as he and Barbara fell in behind him.

"Hmm? Oh Chesterton you must ask the obvious questions. Come along." He said, looking up as the bell continued to toll.

"What's going on Susan?" Barbara asked trying to sound calm.

"The controls have gone, there's been a disturbance in space" She paused. "And time, it's affected the ship." She said, her voice and in fact whole body full of worry.

"Disturbance?" Ian asked.

"Nothing to be too concerned with dear boy, this" The Doctor motioned around the walls which Ian had not noticed before had started to loose their definition become fuzzy and other points blocky, as though they were starting the shift from reality. "Is a result of a dark matter event we've flown too close to."

"Dark matter?" Ian asked puzzled.

"It's destabilising the dimensions of the ship. The controls were the first to be affected." Susan replied, still worry present throughout her voice.

"Are we safe?" Barbara asked now seemingly obsessed with the declining definition of the walls.

"The ship will keep us safe." Susan said, of this she sounded confident.

Ian realised they had walked, quite fast too, further than neither he nor Barbara had ventured, they had long passed the infernal food machine and even past wherever the Doctor disappeared off to when he wasn't in the control room.

"Where are we going Doctor?"

"Hmm, oh do be quiet Chesterton, I have some thinking to perform." He said annoyed.

"What's that bell Susan?" Barbra asked after several moments, it had been something that had been bugging Ian as well.

Susan seemed distracted as she listened to her grandfather. "The cloisters." She said, pausing. "They warn of immanent catastrophe."

"To us or the ship?" Ian mused aloud.

Then the Doctor came to a stop in front a door that was completely unlike the other doors in the ship, it seemed almost wooden, it was inset with a leadlight window. So sudden was his stop he nearly walked into the back of him.

"Here we are Susan, I think this will do child, now, the door should just open..." He said, mostly to himself, though from what Ian could tell there was no door.

"Grandfather I can..." Susan started but it seemed the Doctor was in deep though, and then the door swung open.

"Come on, inside Chesterton, Miss Wright." The Doctor said quickly as he motioned them inside.

Ian followed Barbara inside along with Susan before shutting the door quickly.

Inside Ian was surprised in the dim light it looked light some university professor's study, with wood panelling everywhere.

There was a desk-like arrangement atop a small dais in the room, it was to this which the Doctor walked over to and pushed a series of buttons on it tutting to himself as he did so.

Then the lights came on and Ian could see the room in all its, albeit small glory. There was a small set of stairs that lead up to a black void on one side of the room, a light above it was off but everything in the room suggested that one should walk through it.

"What is this place Doctor?" Barbara asked.

"Oh?" The Doctor asked distracted as he opened another panel on the desk and continued to push buttons. "Susan could you..." The Doctor trailed off seemingly asking for assistant.

Susan walked over and pushed several buttons. To one side Ian noticed a wall he thought was blank had shutters on it, which had opened to reveal a very large screen.

On it seemed to be equations that were scrolling through with immense speed. After a minute or two of the Doctor and Susan watching the screen the Doctor seemed to realise Barbara had asked a question, Ian was too caught trying to decipher the equations which seemed to be gibberish.

"This Barbara is the secondary control room." He said with some disdain sniffing as he looked around.

"Secondary?" Barbara asked.

"In times of emergency the ship can be controlled from here. The collapse of the dimensions has made this necessary."

"Collapse?" Ian looked over at the Doctor worried.

"Are we trapped in here Doctor?"

The Doctor seemed amused by Barbara's question. "Of course not my dear." He motioned the void Ian had noticed.

"But how if the doors are..." She trailed off, the Doctor again seemed amused by the question.

"This is not some simple human house my dear, there are many ways of entering and exiting. Now you two, come and stand here, and hold on, the ship's landing mechanisms are compromised." He said being far more serious he motioned them up around the small desk which now Ian was closer to it he realised it was a smaller version and missing the dials and moving centre of the main controls.

"Rematerialsing in 10 seconds." Susan said, her focus was completely on the numbers on the screen.

"Nine, eight, seven." She continued to count as the Doctor also seemed to concentrate. Ian felt his body being pushed and pulled, it was worse than their first trip in the ship, but this time he was prepared, however it was still intense pressure on his body.

The noise of the ship landing formed all around them and then with a thump he felt the ship hitting the ground.

Everyone seemingly exhaled at this point. The Doctor pressed a button and the image scrolling equations were replaced with a vision of tents, sand and people.

"Ha ha...hmm very good." The Doctor said, Ian realised the large screen must function in a similar way to the television screen in the real control room. "Just a moment." The Doctor said as he walked up the stairs calmly. Then they saw the Doctor standing looking at them smiling broadly and then he re-entered the ship.

"Is it grandfather?" Susan appeared to know something.

"Yes my child." The Doctor smiled broadly as he walked over to a cupboard in the corner of the room that Ian had not noticed and brought out a stamp of sorts, stamping his hand and smiling, doing the same to Susan and then to Ian and Barbrara'a hand before they knew what he was doing.

"What-" Ian started.

"Simple diplomatic status." He said, come along. He pushed a series of buttons on the desk and motioning them quickly out of the room.

_Later..._

Ian looked around the large room.

According to the Doctor they were on the planet Hyspero, a planet of markets, of wonder, of tales of mystery, of history and culture. Where adventurers travelled to and where wanderers ventured. It was also somewhere the Doctor and Susan had been before.

The Doctor had told them that they would need to stay out of the TARDIS for several weeks for the internal dimensions to reassert themselves. Ian fleetingly thought it was because the Doctor wanted to have a wander around, but he seemed genuine about what he had told them and more to the point Susan also agreed with him, it seemed whatever had happened to the ship it was bad and they needed to stay away.

In the mean time the Doctor had booked them all into something like a villa or a hotel and given him 'card of credit' which bore the words 'New Galactic Bank'.

It was rather unusual, considering the danger, disaster and everything that befell them. He wondered if this was what the Doctor did when the ship _worked_.

The room he was standing in was inside a multi-domed building that looked like something out of Arabia, but it actually seemed to be some sort of conference centre.

He had declined Barbara's earlier suggestion to go shopping and exploring with Susan, the Doctor had merely said he'd _probably_ see them at dinner and also wandered off.

Ian had just felt like looking around, there was also the promise of beer, something that was noted in the 'tablet' device that they all had in their rooms Hyspero supposedly had a range of drinking establishments.

It was a silly thing Ian thought, but beer, the English pint was something that the TARDIS was sorely lacking, the food machine with all its wonders could not produce a pint, unless it was a pint of water or milk.

But in looking around for such establishment he had found this auditorium space, it seemed there was a conference that was going on, an archaeology conference it seemed.

The sign at the door stated that the talk was 'Advanced Technological Species and their impact on less-advanced civilisation.'

Ian sat down in the auditorium and flipped through the notes that he'd found at the door the flyer noted at the bottom 'Presented on genuine paper!'.

This was more Barbara's sort of thing, but it was something he rarely got to do, sit and listen (unless it was the Doctor) to a lecture. It seemed this was a multi-university presentation with doctors and professors and also students from many universities. None of them he recognised, unless Luna University referred to Earth's moon, the University of Rago Rago 56 Rago sounded positively not from Earth, but then there were also people speaking from Aberystwyth University both of which were on Earth the University of Cambridge and also St Oscar's University which sounded like it was on Earth, though he'd not heard of it.

But, Ian mused as he stood up to let a being that looked like a giant hamster pass along the isle he had to be many centuries from the Earth he knew.

Ian looked along the bar, they had been told at the end of the speeches that there was to be a soiree following. A chance to mingle and talk and the like.

There were beer taps, or things that resembled beer taps there but no one to serve the drinks.

"What're drinking?" Asked a female voice, Ian recognised her as one of the speakers during the conference.

"Uh." Ian started. "Beer though I'm not sure."

"A man after my own heart!" She beamed at him. "Oi! Two pints of Arcadian Ale." The woman shouted at the bar.

Ian watched as a robot popped up from the bar and then dispensed two pints of beer. Ian was still fumbling with his 'card of credit' when the woman waved her card at the robot.

"Expense account." She explained. Ian had barely taken a sip of his pint when the woman spoke again. "So you're a time traveller."

Ian did his best not to splutter into his pint. But the woman grinned delighted at him. "I enjoyed your presentation on" he paused "Osirain influences of Martian culture." He said recalling her lecture, it had been quite fascinating. He didn't even know there was a civilisation on Mars.  
"Thanks, you should buy my book." She motioned towards some comfortable chairs and a table between them. Once seated she was watching him again. "20th century was always a favourite of mine." She said after a moment of watching him.

Ian wasn't sure what to say, in all his travels with the Doctor he'd not met anyone who'd been able to tell he was a time traveller. It was a description he'd not even considered himself if he was honest.

"How do you know Professor Summerfield?" He asked as he placed his drink on the table in front of them.

She beamed at him. "You're doing better than some of my students who can't remember my name, let alone the difference between the Sumaran and Sensorian eras."

Ian had never heard of either of those eras. "They're not from Earth are they by any chance?"

Professor Summerfield laughed. "No. You're a long way from Earth now, so when did you leave?" She asked curiously.

Ian was thrown for a moment, it was the first time anyone had been frank about time travel to ask _when_ he was from. "Kidnapped more like it." He muttered to himself, but by Professor Summerfield's expression she heard it. "1963."

"And by the accent English." Then she muttered something to herself. "Same year as the Shoreditch Incident."

"I'm sorry?" He asked.

"Nothing, just remembering." She paused and took a long gulp of the ale. "So where's the operator of your time machine, it's always fun to meet others."

"You're a time traveller?" He asked curiously.

"I was." She replied.

Ian nodded. "He's off wandering around."

"Scheming and playing chess with the universe?" Professor Summerfield queried cynically.

This time Ian laughed, he doubted the Doctor could ever do anything like that. "I'm not sure what he's up to. Off sitting in cafés or visiting libraries or something I'd imagine."

"Probably not the man I knew, though he did have many faces." She seemed to be watching his face for a reaction. He didn't know what she meant, if something was to be meant.

"So, anyone else's lecture you enjoyed?"

"Aside from yours?" He asked drinking more of his ale, Professor Summerfield was right, it was good, though he could not match her rate of consumption.

"Professor..." Ian paused and couldn't remember the name, only how the 'person' looked, it made him smile thinking. "From the Santa Diana University...uh"

Professor Summerfield smiled. "She's a Pakhar, they don't like" She paused and leaned in towards him "being compared to giant hamsters."

Ian chuckled. "I'd imagine not. The woman who was on near the end River Song."

"'Post-deity myths in transient counter cultural societies and their effect on the technological revolutions.'" Professor Summerfield recalled.

Ian nodded. "It was interesting, but she didn't seem focused, there was a man who was watching her."

"Observant." Professor Summerfield raised her glass to him. "The man in the fez." Ian nodded. "I don't think he's dangerous."

"Do we ever know who's dangerous and who isn't?" Ian mused taking a large swig of the ale.

"They're usually the ones pointing guns at you." Professor Summerfield noted.

Much later and several pints of ale later Ian made what he thought was a dignified walk into dinner with the Doctor, Barbara and Susan.

The Doctor was laughing. "You've been drinking Chesterton."

Ian dropped into a chair. "I went to a lecture today Doctor and met some professors."

"Oh? That's not like you Ian." Barbara said.

Ian accepted the glass the Doctor pushed into his hand. "This will replenish your fluids and speed the flushing of alcohol from your system dear boy."

Ian did have to admit that he had gotten into something of discussion with Professor Summerfield that had involved several pints, and while he'd valiantly tried to match her intake he hadn't been able to.

He wasn't used to drinking in the early afternoon till night, not since his early years.

"How was your day Doctor?" He asked across the table, trying to be bright. "Spent the day playing chess with planets?" He asked in an amused tone. The Doctor seemed genuinely baffled by the question.

"Strange question Chesterton." He seemed genuinely annoyed by even the proposition that he might do so.

"How many drinks did you have Ian?" Barbara asked as she moved around and sat next to him, loosening his tie.

"A few." Ian admitted as he accepted a jug of something luridly coloured that smelled like fruit from Susan to fill the goblet in front of him.

"It looks like more than a few Chesterton." The Doctor chuckled as he gestured a bowl full of something. "Eat, Chesterton, some of this, the lipids in the dish will absorb your day's indulgences." The Doctor smiled at him again, seemingly greatly amused by his plight.

A few days later the Doctor had announced he'd organised a special trip of sorts.

Like a camping trip, without the travelling, he'd handed them bracelets "teleport bracelets, like on Marinus" and that they could use between outposts.

It had been interesting to get away from the city.

The conference he'd been to had seemingly departed the following day, along with most of the educators who had been presenting at the conference.

Now they were sitting, literally in the middle of the desert, there had been a market they'd been to earlier in the day. But that was all but gone, all evidence of it had disappeared, there was but a single lamp post-like structure signifying the teleport field.

Ian, Susan and Barbara were sat around a fire, waiting for a kettle above it to boil, having polished off some fish earlier in the night. According to Barbara they all had names, the fishmonger she'd bought them from had been most insistent that they remember that when it was cooked.

Ian had spent the day wandering around with Susan, it had been interesting to spend time with her as opposed to Barbara and the Doctor. The Doctor had been off on his own again, seemingly enjoying this detour.

Susan had even bought him a book from one of the market stalls that seemed almost TARDIS like, their tent slash caravan arrangement almost seemed bigger within than without.

The book; the _Aja'ib_ was all about strange tales, about an evil rogue that summoned the devil, and brought forth sea monsters, who summoned djinn and tries and fails to kill his brother. There was another story about iron autonmata, people in purple fur coats and a white bird of temporal inclination dividing a city lost beneath something. It was quite strange but Susan had seemingly plucked it from a table full of books and said with a strange smile that she thought he'd enjoy it.

It was now tucked into his pocket, its stories seemed to grow as he read them, he'd been tempted to flip to the end and see if 'The end' was written somewhere. Susan had looked shocked. "Knowing the ending Ian isn't what it's about it's the journey. Even with time travel, we explore and experience. Knowing how things end isn't the purpose, it is experiencing them." And then they were off buying a sorbet from a purple horse with yellow spots.

The kettle seemed to be taking a long time to boil.

"It's the air pressure here, the fire carriers protect their fires during the night. It takes longer to boil water at night on Hyspero." Susan said as they watched the kettle.

Amazingly Barbara had managed to find tea, actual black tea. Ian had spent a few minutes just smelling the container of it that Barbara had procured. It was those little things, tea and ale that made him wish for home, for Earth. And yet staring up at the sky he felt chills run down his spine as he looked up seeing the multitude of stars and the small moving things in the sky; spaceships, hundreds of them in orbit. They were, according to the Doctor too big to land, so sent smaller craft to land or used the teleport systems.

Thinking of the Doctor, Ian looked across past their unfeasibly large tents that were the size of a tent he'd used as a boy and yet were like a cabin within. Away from their camp site a good couple of hundred meters away was another smaller camp fire, with two figures sitting in front of it, and behind them, a red double decker bus.

"Should we have saved something for the Doctor?" Ian asked again watching the two figures, in the pitch dark that was around them he could see two pricks of light from the cigarette of one figure and the Doctor's pipe.

Susan followed his gaze, her expression unreadable, though Ian suspected sometimes that her expression was only readable when she _wanted_ it to be readable. "No. Grandfather knows what he's doing. That woman would have provided something."

"Probably gin from the smell of her." Barbara commented. They had been briefly introduced to Miss Iris Wildthyme earlier in the day. It seemed she knew the Doctor, and even knew, how he couldn't fathom of their time on Skaro.

He must be getting used to the strange happenings with the Doctor, because upon seeing a red London double decker; the number 22 to Putney Common he didn't think it very out of the ordinary at all.

The sound of the Doctor's laughter wafted across the distance between them.

"We'll let the old boy have his fun." Ian said turning back to the two women.

"So what should we do to pass the time?" Barbara asked.

"We could tell ghost stories." Ian offered. "That's what we'd do in my scout group. Gather around the fire and tell stories while we warmed our hands on hot cocoa."

"Should I have found some cocoa while I was out Ian?" Barbara asked amused.

"Not with that green ooze." Ian shuddered.

"Skarasen milk, it's quite desirable to some species." Susan added helpfully. "Especially from non-bioengineered varieties."

"So who goes first? I'm afraid my ghost stories pale some what compared to what I've seen with the Doctor." Ian said as he added another log to the fire, it cracked and spluttered before the flames surged up, feeding on whatever sap was within it, then it settled down.

"I can, if you'd like." Susan said, drawing their attention after a minute of silence.

They both nodded.

"In the dark days, when the universe was but a still idea in the maelstrom of reality." Susan paused looking between the two human teachers. "When the Old Ones" She spoke the name with reverence and power. "Roamed seeking a way into the forming universe. The Intelligence binding its web seeking out form. Shub-Niggurath taking her traumatic birth on Polymos. Elements of Chaos taking their lead from Azathoth, even the Shobogans saw his light." She said with a smile. "Hastur the Unspeakable rose from the depths of the ocean of space and time, their wolves seeking out across the universe changing and altering events, Hastur's power could alter manipulate time itself." She paused, breath caught in her chest. "And then came the birth of the universe when the old ones cried out, and grappled forth into our universe, a single Lloigor, the Nestene birthed on Polymos, the Mandragora spiralling through the universe seeking a form. The Carrionites speaking their ways into the universe from beyond the fold." Susan paused "Then, as wars were almost won, the bowships screaming across space to defeat the Great Vampires closed, with them being destroyed, new beings were discovered.

The Pantheon of Discord coming forth, bringing chaos in new forms and new iterations, the Trickster creating chaos in ways beyond Hastur and Azathoth's imaginings." One of the logs cracked, making Ian and Barbara jump, but Susan merely looked at them curiously. "Then, we met the Angels, they spread their wings out into the universe. The kindly assassin, some have called them. Faces of stone, bodies of stone, they are without time." She paused, this sentence seemed weighted. "But they could steal, thieving the timeline. They hide their faces while being the most vicious of creature, frozen when viewed, they are locked, unmoving in the gaze. Watching them brings them into existence, but watching them is the only way to save yourself. They can take your life, your potential throwing you to the oceans of time herself, washing you along a timeline. Death in the most gruesome of sorts, at the hands of time herself far from your beginnings, forcing a life upon you, whilst scraping, gnawing at the meat of your timeline."

Ian became aware after an indeterminate amount of time that the kettle was boiling, steam jutting into the cold night air. His mind was alight with imaginations, of angels of stone, of monsters from before the end of the universe. He looked over at Barbara who seemed to be equally troubled and trying to decipher the story that Susan had told them.

"I'll make the tea shall I?" Susan asked brightly, seemingly unaware of her story's affect on her two human companions.

_Present..._

Ian had skipped through the events on Hyspero waiting as Harry listened, he was having some trouble getting his head around this young man was the little boy, Harry Potter, a boy who wouldn't be born for another 10 years at least.

"Those angels." Harry said as Ian recalled the story Susan had told him.

"The angels?" Ian repeated. Susan's ghost story had remained with him for some time. It seemed more scary to Susan than it had been to himself and Barbara, the content of it had weight with Susan, far more than with himself and Barbara.

"They sound to be an apt description of the things that attacked us." The younger woman, Daphne Greengrass, Ian thought to himself commented.

"They match the description of your story quite well." The blond man said.

But Harry seemed troubled. "They do, but, from what I know, we should have gone back a lot further." This attracted attention from his two companions.

"What? Potter?"

"If it is what my contact's information provided, he was sent from our time back to Henry the Eighth. I wonder why we ended up here." Harry said musing to himself. To Ian's ears he sounded almost like the Doctor in that moment. "But it's a good thing we're here and not then, we'd be royally buggered if we ended up then."

"As opposed to now when there's" The blond man, Draco was his name started and then seemed to remember his place. "Events happening that these muggles wouldn't know about." He finished.

Ian had put them up in set of rooms close to the top of the house, the collection of rooms had a small drawing room that was near by them.

It was where Harry was sat much later into the night thinking, after a meal and a chat, where upon Daphne and Draco had gone upstairs to do whatever he'd had a real chat with Ian and Barbara, and now here he was, thinking, a pen and pad in hand, considering their options.

Hanging around for a lift wasn't an option, especially considering _he_ was already here, not to mention the other two.

He had one thing written at the top of the note pad 'Call the Doctor' and underneath it 'How?' with lines scribbled under it. Leaning back in the old arm chair he stared at the ceiling, in thought.

He didn't know how long he'd been staring at the ceiling, maybe he'd fallen asleep, but the door creaked open and he looked down from the ceiling to see Draco Malfoy walking in as though he owned the place, though seeming somewhat surprised to see him sitting here.

"Potter."

"Draco." Harry greeted him with not much of a smile.

"You've finished speaking with your muggle friends." Malfoy said with some distaste.

"For now." Harry said. "There's some tea and an electric kettle there if you'd like a cup." Harry motioned by the window.

Malfoy shook his head, touching his arm as he did, Harry had noticed it much earlier in the day, and he'd been meaning to address it with Malfoy.

Malfoy sat down opposite him. "So have you worked out, Potter, how to remove us from this time period?"

"Not yet. It is complicated."

"As complicated for us as for you?" Malfoy said, though Harry wasn't quite sure what he meant.

"I don't really care what your family gets up to during this time Draco, _I've_ been here once and been tempted, been tempted to see my parents." Harry said his voice rising. "But I didn't, I followed my mission, and met people whom I knew died. Most of the people I met here from the wizarding world are dead in our time. I could have prevented those."

"But you didn't, the saviour in you Potter must have been burning."

"The sanctity of the timeline is more important." Harry nodded to Malfoy's arm. "You needn't worry about that."

Malfoy wrenched his hand away from his arm. "What? Potter how can you know!"

"I know because of what I've suffered against him." Harry said darkly. "The scars we carry are from another time, another world. That's where they're connected. Not here."

Malfoy seemed to relax a little bit.

"And what if you fail to come up with an idea to save us all Potter? What then?"

Harry smiled. "Draco" This focused his attention. "I'm Harry Potter, when have you known me to fail?" Harry asked with a slight chuckle.

"Multiple times Potter." Malfoy answered instantly.

"I meant when you're not at the foot of the stairs, mocking." Harry continued.

"I would never watch from the foot of the stairs." Malfoy continued.

"No a Slytherin sneaks around."

"We are long beyond those Potter." Then Malfoy stood up and left.

Once the door closed another person spoke. "It's good to see you're getting along so well." Harry almost jumped, he twitched a bit and he could feel his heart racing somewhat as Daphne sat down into the chair.

"How long have you been in here Daphne?"

"Long enough." She smiled mysteriously. "Do you believe what you told him?"

"Which part?" Harry asked distractedly as he tried to slow his heart beat down.

"The connection across time shouldn't reassert itself, you are right in your observation, even if your knowledge of magical theory may be lacking." Daphne analysed watching him.

"Isn't that what I said?" Harry asked watching Daphne who was wrapped in a night gown that knowing her she had prepared in her bag just in case. It accentuated her body in just the right way. Harry chastised himself. He had more important things to consider at this moment.

Although it was tempting as she turned and left the room to follow her. But instead he exercised some self control and picked the notepad back up to resume his brain storming.

Ian stopped at the top of the stairs, in thought, Barbara was still in bed, not quite asleep, not quite awake, the in-between time. The time that used to make him twitch awake if he was bedded down in some inhospitable environment on an alien world somewhere.

Now there was someone who came from that time, a boy, a man now, who wouldn't be born, a boy who wouldn't encounter him for more than 10 years.

It was Harry Potter though, that he and Barbara were sure of, the way he moved and spoke, his enthusiasm and his knowledge of them, their encounters, it brought back many memories of their time with the Doctor.

Barbara also noted that Harry knew the Doctor far better than they did, although he hadn't said so, it was the way he spoke with such enthusiasm, yet holding back a certain amount of knowledge, consciously.

His dreams had been filled of things from Hyspero, of tales and stories, he'd even found the _Aja'ib_, it was something he'd had in his pocket, he'd stuffed it in when they'd left the TARDIS on Mechanus and he'd not taken it out. It was, aside from the mud and sand on their clothes the only memento from their TARDIS travelling days.

Walking down the stairs he tensed, he could see a figure standing in the kitchen.

"I thought about cooking breakfast for you all, but it seemed a bit presumptuous, and a bit of a cliché." Harry said as he walked into the room, in response to his quizzical look.

"Clichéd?" Ian repeated looking around the kitchen. Nothing had been touched, aside from the kettle which had been moved and a tea pot had been taken out.

Harry smiled wryly. "Guests arrive randomly and one of them gets up and cooks a wondrous breakfast for their guests that they've imposed upon."

Ian nodded along with Harry's odd logic, delivered in such a cynical tone. That was something that he had not encountered in the young man he had met in the past, his past. This man, this younger man than himself, had far more of a sarcastic and cynical streak through him. His companions were also much like him in some ways.

"Your companions?"

Harry shrugged. "I'd imagine still asleep, well, Malfoy" He shook his head seemingly correcting himself. "_Draco_ is probably asleep. Daphne's probably awake. A journey through time like that unprotected leaves you a bit out of sorts."

"We never had any trouble in the TARDIS, I got more jet lag flying to America." He said as he filled up the kettle once more.

"The TARDIS..." Harry paused, seemingly trying to think of the right word. "Compensates, I think for the time differences." He said as he sipped his tea.

As Ian set the kettle going once again he looked over to the table where a note pad sat, it was covered in notes. Without thinking he walked over picking it up.

It was only as he flipped over the second page that he'd realised what he'd done.

"I-"

Harry chuckled to himself. "What do you think?"

"What is it Harry?" Ian asked looking at the notes, there were words with circles drawn around it in forms of creative diagrams and thought analysis.

"Notes on what to do, to get away from this time."

"Because you're still here." Ian replied. Harry nodded. It was somewhat confusing, even talking with Barbara late into the night last night. There had been that incident on Xeros when they'd jumped a time track. But he'd never faced the possibility of meeting himself. As in actually running into himself. But he did know he would, in the future, he would have to stay away from Little Whinging.

It was strange to think that when he and Barbara had been there, would be there.

Harry had, while Ian had been thinking to himself indicated the affirmative.

"This is also a very dangerous time for my associates to be here."

"The war that the Doctor talked of." Again Harry indicated an affirmative but didn't elaborate.

"What happened to Dalek time ship?" Harry asked suddenly.

Ian was thrown for a moment. "The Daleks' time machine?" He asked. "We set the self destruct."

"Which would have left parts, nothing's 100 percent effective."

"What are we doing here Potter?" Draco asked in a disgusted tone having accompanied himself and Daphne in apparition to the same location, guided by Harry.

"The muggle stored the parts from an alien time machine that he destroyed several years ago upon returning to Earth. Or weren't you listening to Harry Draco?" Daphne explained casually.

"I was listening thank you Greengrass, why did _we_ have to attend your scavenger hunt?"

"Did you really want to hang around Barbara and Ian's house all day? A muggle's house?" Harry asked as they walked along a row of storage units.

Malfoy was silent. Harry came to a stop in front of a door and withdrew some keys from his pocket.

Ian had said that Barbara hadn't wanted this stuff stored at their house, but if need be he could construct his mechanism there or somewhere on the grounds.

There was just a single bulb above to illuminate the space and what was within.

It was a pile of white panels, some Dalek controls. No pieces of Dalek though, disappointingly.

Some clear broken tubes, some round controls that matched the sucker arm of a dead Dalek or two he had at his house in 2005. There were also a few screens, also round and all mostly broken.

"Rather thorough." He muttered to himself as he made his way around the room.

He had a very vague idea of what he needed, he had begun to mess around with some of the temporal technology that had been left on Earth, mostly as a defence system, and he'd listened to the Doctor enough to build a beacon of some sort...Hopefully.

"What is all this junk Potter?" Harry resisted the urge to punch Draco Malfoy and briefly pondered what it would've been like if instead of Malfoy here he had Ron.

"No, that's actually worse." He muttered to himself.

"What was that Potter?"

"Just pondering to myself, what this would be like if you weren't here."

Malfoy sniffed. "I have been thinking that since I met you Potter, I think my world would be immensely better if you were not around."

Harry turned around to look at Malfoy who had picked up piece of what was probably a wall. "I very much doubt that Malfoy I-" Harry stopped as he saw what he'd been looking for, well not exactly looking for, but what he had assumed he'd find. A temporal stabiliser element was a function of all time machines, or so the Doctor had said in the past, which was probably the present at the moment.

Harry didn't quite shove Malfoy out of the way, but he did move to within quite closer quarters of the other man.

Malfoy made an annoyed noise as he did so. "Don't mind me Potter, just shove yourself around like any commoner."

"I trust your rush means you've located something that will assist in rendering us assistance?" Daphne asked curiously, she had followed him into the storage area but had restrained herself from actually touching anything, unlike Draco.

At least, Harry reflected he hadn't had the Mad Cow's reaction to the idea of aliens, or perhaps Malfoy had just taken his indifferent approach to this and put it down to Harry's madness and love for muggles.

Harry didn't really want to question Malfoy's motives, he was here, he hadn't apparated off, so that was okay. He didn't want to have to worry about him going off and trying to change history.

He wasn't sure his other friends would show the same restraint. Harry cursed himself silently and hated himself for a moment for comparing Ron and Malfoy.

Pulling out a simple canvas bag that Barbara had provided him and that he'd subsequently charmed to be larger within he slipped the temporal stabiliser into it along with several of the screens and controls, just in case.

"If you're done fondling the alien technology Draco." Harry asked in a tone similar to Malfoy's, who just glared at him and gently placed the piece of wall he had been fondling back where he had found it.

"So that's it, you use this piece of _technology_ and you can have us removed from this area of _history_ that you forced us into?" They were in a stable on the edge of Ian and Barbara's property. There were places closer to the house, but Harry had just a _very slight_ concern in the back of his mind that if he plugged up this Dalek technology they _might_ turn up to pick it up.

Though the Doctor had said something about these Daleks, or this era's Daleks being tied up with Taranium and master plans or something.

But he still didn't think that Ian and Barbara would appreciate elements of their past; Daleks, turning up and wanting to kill them, or serve them tea, the latter was more disturbing to his mind and was only there because Draco was currently lounging in a chair drinking a mug.

Why Draco was here was a wholly other question, he could have remained in his room at the house, but both he and Daphne were here in this stable.

Harry dragged another hand through his hair as he attached the volt meter to another part of the Dalek equipment, the screens he'd managed to get the smallest amount of flicker out of them by wiring them up to the power that was in here, nearly electrocuting himself, but it seemed they were far more thirsty than 230 or so volts that the mains power could supply.

"This is not going to be a simple solution is it Harry?" Daphne asked watching him, having put down the book she was reading; _Death in the Clouds_, she'd found it in Ian's library.

"There's nothing in the stabiliser…" Harry leaned back in the chair thinking to himself. "Or any way to power it when…" Harry felt the chill of realisation trickle down his back as a dangerous idea formed in his mind.

-/

The following day he was dressed approximately as he'd be when he was last here. With Daphne and Draco in tow they'd apparated to a base that he'd thought he'd try his best to avoid.

UNIT HQ.

As far as he knew the Brigadier had ordered the machine the Doctor had Osgood construct to be reconstructed, just in case, now he had to go and ask the Brigadier where it was.

With Daphne and Draco keeping watch for his earlier self.

How did his life end up this complicated? Harry asked himself they walked towards UNIT HQ.

_Earlier…_

"Potter, this is Weasley levels of stupidity, _you_ were the one warning us of this kind of interference." Was Draco's reaction when Harry had explained what they needed to do.

"What of a source of…" Daphne waved her hands around. "Energy, time turners require specific energies to function, it is in part what makes them so expensive."

"Yet the muggle could use one for school." Malfoy commented.

"Let's keep the ludicrousness of letting Hermione use a time turner to take extra classes out of the conversation Draco." Harry said quickly and wondered if Ian would mind if he poured himself a double scotch and looked up at the ceiling. He wished the Doctor was here, wished he could go and see his friend and ask for help. But this all was getting too complicated already.

"It will be simpler to borrow the equipment than for me to try and make it myself, I don't think I'd know how." He admitted.

"How do you know that _you_ in the past won't be there tomorrow."

"I'm off tracking down and k-" Harry stopped himself but both Daphne and Draco already knew what the rest of that word was, he corrected himself nonetheless. "Disposing of one of Ginny's supporters tomorrow, I think." He said as he realised he had the attention of both of the pair in the room.

Draco was looking at him again with a look of, something unreadable about the man. Every time he spoke of the…the removal of Ginny's supporters it seemed to grab both their attentions.

_Present…_

Daphne trailed behind Harry with Draco in tow, they'd all three visited a muggle emporium to gather some clothing for this outing, Harry being particular about the clothing he needed to wear. To wear something as close to his 'earlier self' as he referred with such casualness that revealed his ease with the concept of temporal transference.

Now, here at this muggle facility, dedicated to the combatting of _aliens_ it was clear that Harry had indeed resided here. The muggle soldiers that they passed recognised him, addressed him as someone who had spent time in their company.

She and Draco had cast some minor spells to ensure they would not be noticed, though nothing drastic, she had assured Harry that it would not be noticeable to his earlier self. While Harry was far more than capable, he was not as an expert in some of the magic that she and Draco had knowledge of. It was not a judgment on him, merely a statement on their pureblood upbringings.

Potter wasn't deluded, he hadn't been making this up. Draco was realising, he had entertained the possibility that this was some mass group delusion between the three of them, something psychotropically induced that he might snap from back into the world of the waking.

But this, the people who addressed Potter, the ease and casualness that he addressed these muggles and they him, was beyond a construction of his mind.

He had agreed with Daphne's decision to cast a series of charms to prevent their presence being discovered, temporal excursions such as this were worse than dangerous. If Potter was to be believed, and he, by his standing here it was very obvious that Potter was not being deceptive, that he was honest in his assertion that he had spent considerable time here, it meant that they were in the past.

He touched his arm again.

Potter had also assured him that _that_ would not be an issue either. Everything Potter had said so far had been true.

Draco was ambivalent about how he should react to this. It was a state he had been in since they had arrived here and he had been able to take in Potter's state.

They'd made it up to the Brigadier's office without running into anyone too important, plenty of the lads whom he'd had many a drink with, but no like the Doctor, or Jo, whom he'd managed to avoid all the time he'd been here, and it would be in amazingly bad form to run into her in the here and now.

Knocking gently on the door to the Brigadier's office he almost jumped out of his skin when the Brigadier came up behind him.

"I thought you were out today Mr Potter, running an 'errand' of yours?" Harry turned around and saw the Brigadier standing there smirking at having caught him out.

Further back into the offices around the Brigadier's office he could see Daphne and Draco, hand at wands, waiting.

"Brigadier, I thought you were at a meeting at well." Harry said casually as his heart rate returned to normal and tried not to smile, seeing his friend again, despite being able to see him in his present and all.

"I was, it finished early, have you changed clothes Mr Potter?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You never comment on Jo's outfit or Corporal Bell's hair, yet Brigadier you mention my clothes, will the Doctor be jealous?" Harry mocked, this rustled the Brigadier.

"Really Mr Potter, now" He walked past unlocking the door to the office. "What had you sneaking around my offices?"

Draco looked over at Greengrass, she had been as reserved as she always was since they had arrived here. Her family had not been directly involved with the war, with the Dark Lord, or with Dumbledore. Neutral.

The man whom Potter was caught by seemed to be associates, even friends with Potter by the way they bantered.

Daphne watched, this was the Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart that Harry had said that he'd like her to meet at some point. The man he'd talked of that he'd met during this time and rekindled his association with in their own time. They clearly had a banter, a relationship here. But there was also a deference, a mutual respect present in how Harry referred to him, not just in title, but in body language, his whole stance changed both obviously and subtly when he spoke with him.

She could also see Draco studying her, when she was watching Harry. She shared Harry's feelings that it was preferable that Draco was present her and not his friend Ronald. Draco was far more predictable than Ronald Weasley, and more tolerable to have in her presence.

Harry had managed to give the Brigadier a convincing if convoluted argument why he should be able to take a look at the diaphermic resonance generator and that the Brigadier shouldn't ask him about it and should wait for him to bring it up.

He wasn't quite sure how he'd managed to make it sound so convincing but he'd left with some signed papers from the Brigadier for permission to take the mostly rebuilt generator and the Land Rover that it was being built on.

He'd collected Daphne and Draco who had been patiently waiting and they'd managed to make it almost all the way across the UNIT base until he ran into someone he was hoping he wouldn't, even though a part of him secretly wished he did. He quickly motioned with his hands behind his back to Draco and Daphne, who hopefully found refuge between the vehicles they were walking between.

"Harry! Old chap, I thought you were out today, running errands as the Brigadier likes to say." The Doctor was in his overalls, obviously playing around with Bessie.

"He's back from his meeting."

"Playing around being soldier and politician, poor old chap." He chuckled.

"He did look relieved to be back at HQ when I saw him." Harry said as he tried to act as he did, had or whatever when he'd been here previously.

"Is something wrong Harry?" The Doctor was watching him closely now.

Harry shook his head. "Nothing more than usual, the pressures of concerns about the web of time and everything." Harry dragged a hand through his hair.

"Yes, it is a lot to concern yourself with. If the Time Lords hadn't…" Harry gave him a look and he chuckled. "Something we both know about, more and less so in our cases Harry."

"Yes, hopefully my mission and your time will be dealt with at some point soon Doctor." Harry said casually.

The Doctor watched him and smiled. "Yes, now I think I'll go and see if the Brigadier has got his funding and I can finally get my extra lab."

"Or at least the Brigadier can get some nicer scotch for his office." The Doctor chuckled at this comment.

"Now don't get yourself injured again Harry." He said seriously as they parted.

"I've got some people to watch my back. This time." Harry said to himself as the Doctor walked away.

There was something powerful about the man in the grease stained clothes. Draco thought as he watched the…man walk away. There was something distinctly un-muggle-like. Potter also related to the man unlike the military muggle or anyone else he'd thus far spoke with.

But this man, he carried himself with such power, and yet there was something else so him as well.

Another facet of the Doctor, and once more another aspect of a power being. Harry was very casual and friendly with this man and they seemed on even terms. It was intriguing to see him interact with this man who existed without the shackles of time.

Yet there was also a youngness to him, despite appearances which was somewhat lacking in the man she'd seen on the riverbank.

_Later…_

"Should I ask what a Land Rover is doing in my shed?" Ian asked as he joined Harry in the library. Harry was musing about how to do something even more dangerous than going to UNIT HQ.

"I borrowed it." Harry said simply.

"One part of your plan finished Harry?" Ian asked watching him.

"It just gets more complicated from here." Harry said with a sigh.

"Is there anything Barbara and I can do to help?" He asked.

Harry smiled at the older man and shook his head. "You've done plenty, I know this would have been far harder had you not been here."

"But you're a resourceful young man Harry, the Doctor thought so too."

Harry smiled. "It's seems such a long time ago."

"In the future and the past." Ian chuckled.

"Time travel." Harry shook his head.

-/

This was dangerous.

They'd arrived early, this was down to his not perfect memory for things like when he met people in pubs for casual drinks.

There was also a possibility that Moody and Dumbledore were still keeping an eye on him, him in the past that was.

Draco and Daphne were checking out the surrounds just in case, and they'd be joining him inside, once he, his earlier self had left.

Harry wondered to himself why he didn't notice all this when he was here the first time.

Although, it never would have crossed his mind that he'd be back here, within spitting distance of himself.

He was vaguely sure he was close to breaking one of the laws of time.

It was Harry's conveyance, here and now, this is when he had come to own it. Daphne mused to herself as she cast detection spells.

For Albus Dumbledore and Alastor Moody and anyone else who was in the Order of the Phoenix, whom Harry had somehow managed to meet and not cause a magical schism.

Now they were here, at a pub to meet, Harry hadn't said, some people who would help.

He seemed pained and happy to be here more so than at UNIT or with Ian and Barbara.

The two muggles intrigued her, and she'd spent some time speaking with Barbara. After she had revealed she knew of the Doctor and time travel, though she didn't reveal how much or little she knew, Barbara was more forthcoming about her tales with the mysterious Doctor.

Potter was taking a risk, being so close to his earlier temporal self. Draco cast a series of spells around him, rubbing his arm again. Being this close to potentially to Dumbledore, Albus Dumbledore, who was alive and possibly trailing Harry Potter, and not even this Harry Potter a young earlier Potter.

His continued existence, in a life he knew relied on Harry Potter.

Draco swore under his breath, such a concept would have worried him greatly in the past. But now, having been around him his opinion had shifted somewhat.

From his vantage point he could see Potter waiting and watching for _himself_ to leave the bar. It was one that seemingly was frequented by wizards but had ample muggle access and even it seemed muggle patrons oblivious to the wizarding population there.

Then the door opened and he could see both Potters.

It was strange, Draco had never used a time turner, but had read of the inexplicable sensation of observing two versions of oneself or another person. It was unlike use of a Polyjuice Potion. The earlier Potter was still very much Harry Potter.

That Potter was speaking into a muggle communication device and then climbed into his conveyance and drove away.

Then Potter motioned to them to follow him into the establishment.

Daphne was annoyed with herself that she had not realised sooner, that Harry was here to see Gideon and Fabian Prewett. By the bar was a man with a camera, who it seemed had just finished taking some photos.

"Friend Harry." Said one of the men, Draco didn't recognise them, but they were clearly wizards, and had a similar head of hair to the Weasleys.

"I thought you said you had to deal with something, with your muggle friends." Said the other younger man.

"I did, it's…complicated."

Harry was very proficient at explaining complicated concepts such as the predicament they were in at this moment Daphne mused. She and Draco were sitting close enough to Harry to hear yet still watch the bar.

It still pained him, though he hid it well to ask his friends for assistance. Especially these friends who would not survive the war.

He showed great restraint in not revealing their fates despite their friendship, even though the method of time travel was not magical, and therefore the repercussions could not be magical, he was still seemingly aware of the greater implications.

"Who are your associates friend Harry?" Gideon asked looking over to Draco and Daphne, paying attention it seemed to Draco.

"Two others who were flung back with me." Harry said casually. Draco wasn't the most subtle looking of wizards. Striking was a word that came to mind, along with several other less flattering terms.

"I know it's something massive to request of you, but…" Harry trailed off. The alternative was attempt to break into the Ministry and steal a time turner himself.

There were too many ifs in that scenario, what if he or the others got caught, what if they were identified, what if they had to disable someone in the Ministry? There were too many variables. Even just going to Diagon, even though he'd wandered around there himself in his past, going there now with Draco and Daphne…triple the dangers.

This had its dangers, but Gideon and Fabian were, Harry mentally corrected himself are, and then swapped back to the past tense once again; _**were**_ his friends and he knew he could trust them.

"You recognise those two and this place." Draco said, surprising Daphne somewhat with his observational skills. He was not as unsubtle as his aspect suggested to people who did not know nor understand him.

Daphne swirled the drink in her glass, they were sat a short distance away from Harry and the Prewett brothers, placed so they could watch for anyone entering the establishment. Just in case someone who knew the brothers entered and came upon this meeting.

She didn't acknowledge him, but this seemed to give him cause to continue.

"Those two, they look familiar, they're purebloods." Draco mused. "But obviously don't care about the subtler elements."

Which meant, in the world of Draco Malfoy, Daphne mused that they were not dressed in the finest clothing. She allowed herself a small smile, it was Harry's cynicism that made her think that, a few years ago the thought mightn't have occurred to her, or she might have thought as Draco did, and a few years ago she suspected the thought would not have amused her, yet now it did, despite where and more importantly when she was.

"Something amusing Greeengrass?" Draco asked, seemingly annoyed she had not responded to his musing.

"Nothing that would interest your view of the world Draco." She paused sipping her drink. "They are Gideon and Fabian Prewett." She said answering his earlier implied question.

"Prewett?" Draco Malfoy frowned in thought.

Most pureblood families knew other pureblood families, it was something they learnt, who the were related to, who they weren't directly, who had affronted whom and how long ago that was.

"The-" Draco said but Daphne fixed him with a hard look, shifting her eye over to the brothers and Harry.

"Quietly Draco, remember where we are."

"Weasleys? Potter's friends with _them_ and he's off trying to kill their relations?" Draco snorted, amused, then he chuckled. He seemed almost ready to break into laughter.

Daphne inclined an eyebrow, she hadn't considered the amusing elements of their and Harry's predicament, both here and now and when he was here in the past. Although, she did not have Draco's sense of humour when it came to such things.

It was much later into the afternoon when they decided to leave, Harry admitted to himself and apologised to Daphne and Draco that they had gotten carried away with their conversations.

Not that the pair seemed to care much, they had seemingly discovered that the pub served meals, something about pre-war wizarding food. He made a note, though he'd probably forget to ask Daphne about it later.

Then as they were exiting the pub someone grabbed him in a headlock, jabbing a wand into his kidneys.

He was surprised more than anything else, and somewhat excited as one did when adrenaline flowed in times like this.

"Hello Potter." His attacker whispered into his ear.

"And Greengrass and Malfoy, how far have you fallen, associating with the deviant Harry Potter. Ginny will be pleased to hear that you…you who have been removing our brethren."

"Oh buggering hell." Harry sighed, he hadn't gone for his wand though it was nice that both Draco and Daphne had drawn theirs.

"Harry?" Daphne queried as he struggled, the man's grip was quite tight on his throat.

"Might I introduce you to one of the nutters from Ginny's little group."

"The cultural terrorists, so they exist Potter." Malfoy seemed amused.

"I would think you Malfoy would support us in our crusade against Potter's deviance and malfeasance. She and the Patron will hear of this. Not just Potter, but his cohorts, whom he has brought into the fore."

Harry sighed again, though he was worried about mention of 'The Patron', not many of Ginny's madmen had mentioned him. And he, his earlier self didn't even know who he was and what they were doing, and which organisation they were working for. Yet.

"Don't do anything or Potter's guts will be over the ground." The man spat at Draco and Daphne.

Harry felt the man's grip tighten along with his body, the telltale signs of preparing for side-along apparition.

"You make the mistake of thinking" Harry said carefully tilting his head forward and to the side, as far away from the man's head as possible. "That Draco Malfoy gives a shit if my guts are on the ground or not." Harry said slowly and then with one move brought his head back. Backwards headbutting the man.

"Stun him!" He bit out as he stumbled. Two stunners hit him as he tried to move.

"Thank you." Harry said as he reached down and picked up the man's wand and looked between the two wizards who had their wands out offering it to both of them. Malfoy took it.

"Used often, looks like" Malfoy paused and looked at Harry. "Yew."

"How fitting considering he's following a mad woman." Harry said as he pushed the man over with his foot and started to search his pockets, but then stopped himself, looking back to the two others as he realised he didn't know the man.

Which meant that he'd have to deal with the man. He said as much to the pair watching him.

"So?" Malfoy asked confused and annoyed with his statement.

"So, I dealt with all of the Mad Cow's followers while I was here, if he knew we're here, then he might have told others, which means I need to control this." Harry paused, this time his heart heavy. "I'll need to extract any information and deal with him."

Harry paused his voice softer. "Draco, I'd like you to come with me." Then he looked to Daphne. "It'd be safer to be together. But you might see a side to me that changes your opinion of me. I'll understand if you want to go back to Ian and Barbara's."

"I'll understand if you want to go back to Ian and Barbara's." Harry was looking at her calmly now, and worried. He would be carrying through with actions he had done when he was previously here. Without a second thought Daphne took his hand, with Draco's also.

Potter was somewhat adept at apparating with an unconscious body, though he did not seem to care if the man splinched or was injured in transit. There was something of a cold, calmness to the man, dangerous even.

They had apparated into a seemingly abandoned muggle factory.

There was a metal chair, and some tools on a bench, further in was the unmistakenable smell of burnt ashes.

"You've been here before Potter." Draco observed.

Potter dragged the man over and halued him into the chair.

"Grab that rope could you Draco?" He asked, still very calmly as he searched the man.

Draco looked around and saw some dirty rope. As he picked it up he realised it wasn't just dirt, but blood. He heard Potter remove a money bag from the man's robes.

"No where else he'd be hiding anything, I don't think." Potter muttered to himself taking the rope from Draco and expertly took the man's hands, binding them each individually before tying them around the chair and then the rope together.

"Daphne, can you case some anti-apparition wards that he can't get through." Harry said, the adrenaline rush had faded, and now replaced with the realisation of what he would need to do again. He hated that he knew in detail what would needed to be done. He knew he had to do it as well, their presence here had the possibility to severally disrupt the time stream and his own personal timeline.

_But_ and crucially to his prior mission here, this man, he didn't recognise, which meant if they'd not found themselves back here he might have wrecked havoc. Or perhaps he had dealt with him and he didn't remember it, because now he'd seen Harry and his cohorts and thus his past had changed.

Harry didn't know which it was, but either way, past or present he would have to deal with this.

"It's done." Daphne said calmly, she was standing a short way back from where he was standing. Malfoy also, was standing, watching and waiting.

"Wake him." He said to either of them.

"Wake him." Potter said, it sounded like an order, though not one he'd ever heard before, not in that tone. Draco levelled his wand at the man, countering the spell, it was both his and Greengrass' spell, so he was slow to come around.

"Now we begin." He heard Potter say, though it seemed he was talking to himself rather than speaking directly at him.

Then Potter, with what looked like great practice and no hesitation cast the Cruciatus cruse at the man; holding it for several seconds.

Draco found himself wincing at Potter's choice, his directness, and even his ability to hold the curse for so long. He did know of many other wizards who could do likewise, but none who had been associated with such light wizards as Dumbledore.

"Oh good." Potter's voice was steely, showing almost no ill effects from holding the curse for so long. "You're awake."

The man had been shouting, screaming even, this was something Draco Malfoy had learned to ignore.

"You're awake."

"Potter." The man's anger was palpable, though Potter seemed entirely unfazed by this, even as the man attempted to spit at Potter he seemed unimpressed. Although, spitting was something of an uncouth response to a situation, it was however to be expected of someone of a stature that would follow the Mad Cow, Ginny Weasley. A title, Draco still found amusing.

"And your friends, deviants, mad men as well, like your own, fondling your own insanity together in the orgy of-"

Then Potter aimed a reducto curse at the man's foot, a bloody mess splattering onto the ground.

"I've heard it all before and worse, I've met your Patron and Miss Weasley."

"You-You…" He was stuttering and dribbling. Draco recognised it as shock.

"So, what have you told anyone about me and my associates here." He said muttering a numbing spell at the man's damaged foot.

Potter was adept at these intelligence gathering techniques. _Very_ adept in fact.

Draco had witnessed many fellow wizards and witches _torture_, some uncontrollable like dear depated Aunt Bellatrix while some were restrained yet gleefully utilizing all forms of torture as the Carrows did.

Potter though was different.

It was curious to watch him, all the while his own wand was out, pointing at the man in the chair who continued to struggle against Potter's…attention.

Draco chanced a look to Greengrass who was, as was often the case had an almost unreadable expression on her face.

Daphne watched Harry with a closed expression.

Harry had talked of his time, including events such as this, but watching her…watching the man she…Daphne cursed herself. Watching the man she had come to love interrogating one of Ginny Weasley's associates was curious.

It was a brutality and coldness that she had not witnessed in Harry. Though their business paths had not intersected till this point in time, so there was no chance that she could have witnessed his practices.

Draco seemed also surprised that Harry could wield such precision. Harry might have been amused at that fact, but he was almost entirely focused on the man.

She didn't even know his name, though to Harry the gathering of intelligence seemed to be all that mattered.

Although, if their presence here in this time had been discovered by anyone outside those whom they'd initiated contact with, then they would need to be controlled. The three of them knew the dangers of time travel, perhaps not as in much detail as Harry, but she knew that Draco as much as herself knew the dangers of time turners. She however still did not know how that Granger woman had been allowed access to a time turner.

The expense and danger of them and she utilised one for extra classes, a muggle born would not have had the requisite knowledge of the dangers involved. Her mother and father had oft told her of wizards who abused them, tales of warning, based in fact. They left scars on their histories, eaten by the majesty of time.

Her attention was dragged back to the reality of the present as the man let out another scream as Harry shattered a portion of the man's leg.

"I'd usually threaten at this point to shoot you, with a muggle weapon, one that's used to fight aliens." Harry mused, stepping away from the man, weighing his wand in his hand, patting it against his other hand. Draco was watching him, and aside from using his wand to tighten the ropes that the man, though seemingly sweat alone had managed to loosen, aside from that he had watched in silence. Though he did seem perplexed, even curious at times.

"You've done this before." The man said in a voice of calm realisation.

"Yes." Harry said looking the man in the blood shot eyes. "And I am here with full permission of the Ministry." Harry paused, it wasn't quite a lie, just not really the truth, he _had_ been here with the Ministry's permission, just not this time.

"I…I haven't reported in, Ginny contacts us when we need to." He said between sobs, looking down at the ground, but then he tensed, finding strength from somewhere. Harry knew the feeling very well. "And she will defeat you, spread your remains for all to see, how deviants like you and your concubines will be dealt with."

Draco choked at this point. "I am not sleeping with Potter."

Harry had to chuckle, despite the situation. "Your leader will be dealt with. Both the Patron and the Mad Cow Weasley."

"What are you going to-" Harry didn't let him finish.

"Avada Kedavra."

Draco was shocked at the casual way Potter cast the killing curse. The man whom Potter had interrogated for…Draco wasn't sure, interrogations and torture was something that seemed to affect his sense of time.

Potter was seemingly unaffected by his actions, calmly untying the body and dragging him over to a muggle furnace.

It was something he had quite clearly done before.

If someone had told him that this is what Potter did he mightn't have believed them. The only thing that could surprise him more was that if Ronald Weasley was secretly a genius.

Daphne didn't move to assist Harry, but walked over closer to Draco.

"Are you alright Draco?" She asked calmly, she, they had just bore witness to Harry interrogate, kill and now dispose of a body, a wizard.

"I've seen plenty of people tortured and murdered Greengrass." But it wasn't an answer.

"It is not a side of Harry I knew much of." She offered honestly.

Malfoy snorted. "I don't think anyone thinks this is a side of Potter. Goody wizard of the light until a few days ago."

The smell of smoke and the sensation of heat made them walk further out of the area into the darkness, each of them illuminating their way with their wands.

"Potter was controlled." Malfoy spoke again, looking back toward the building they had been in.

Daphne remained silent, she was some what practiced in information extraction techniques, though her knowledge tended towards a far different form of information gathering and a different form of information than Harry had needed to extract. Less temporally pressing that what he had needed the information for.

"More controlled?" She asked, only subtlety upwards inflecting her statement so it formed a question.

Draco looked at her as though she knew what he was talking about, she did of course, but it seemed that Draco Malfoy was shocked beyond that which he'd been already concerning her boyfr-…concerning Harry's conduct this evening.

Before he could continue Harry walked out of the building, his expression softened just slightly upon seeing her.

"Thank you for staying around." He said looking to both of them. Draco just nodded, watching Harry curiously.

"Is there anything-" She started.

"His wand." Harry said, his hand out.

Draco gave it to him. "What will you do with it Potter?"

"Dispose of it." Draco looked as though he was going to say something, deliberately burning a wizard's wand was something that was something of a taboo. Wands were far more useful and could still fetch a considerable amount, even though they were another's at some point. "It's an anachronism, something I should have dealt with when I was last here." Harry said tucking it into a pocket.

"If we take it back-" She started but Harry was shaking his head.

"I closed this mission when I was here, it stays here." He said before turning and walking back into the building.

Daphne listened and fancied she might hear the wand going up in flames.

"Ever the business woman Greengrass." Draco commented in a cynical tone once Harry was away from hearing distance.

She was annoyed with herself that she had been that obvious with her intentions. "As you well know, wands from before" She paused. "the war. Are valuable." Some wizards thought that Ollivander had been affected by his contact and hostage by Voldemort. Though she had heard several testaments that the man's skills were unaffected, even heightened by his experiences.

Draco merely regarded her curiously.

Then they both turned at the sound of hissing of water against hot coals and steel.

Harry walked out of the building, having obviously cleansed himself of his earlier actions, at least physically he had. Though his expression was more controlled than his usual comparative openness.

"Time to go I leave I think." He muttered.

"Back to Ian and Barbara's?" Draco asked. He had quite quickly stopped calling them 'the muggles'. Harry nodded.

Later in the evening Ian found Harry standing at the window sipping his scotch. Something was up with the young man, even though he had brightened considerably upon meeting John, who had returned from his grandparents surprised to see the house full of visitors. Barbara had told him not to disturb their guests but Harry seemed most pleased to talk to his son.

But there was something resting below the surface of Harry's body language, like the Doctor brooding over something, or Susan when she had one of her 'feelings' it was something that suggested he was disturbed by something.

Barbara had noticed it too, but he had wanted to talk to him about it, this had pleased his loving wife, in one expression she had said that the two men would have a better chance at talking.

"I hope you don't mind." Harry gestured with the glass.

"Of course not, though it's still hard sometimes, knowing you're not born yet, and when I met you not old enough to drink it." Ian poured himself a small dram into the glass, settling himself into a chair. Harry followed after a moment.

"You're worried." Ian said straight away.

Harry smiled. "I'm introspective." He countered.

Ian chuckled. "Introspective enough to drink Harry."

"I'd often go out with the guys after an operation." Harry replied without thinking.

"With the soldiers you worked with, working with." Ian shook his head.

"Time travel, there are no tenses. It's in the past, for me."

Ian swirled the liquid around in his glass. Harry's friends had already surmised that Harry had spoken with some associates of his, that he knew from before, in order to get the last pieces to make the device functional.

He'd been out to the barn today, while they were out to look at it, it looked nothing like the TARDIS, or the Dalek's time ship. But it also had an air of functionality and a heavy smell of static and things shorting out.

"You did something similar today then?"

"Something I thought I'd put behind me. Something I've become quite proficient in. Much to my own disappointment." Harry continued.

Ian remained quiet, Harry had not said what they had done, merely that they'd had a confrontation upon finishing their meeting, hence their lateness returning this evening, but none of the three had elaborated beyond that.

"I have seen and experienced a great many things in through my life so far Harry, and I know you and I knew the Doctor." Harry was watching him now. "I know that you would not do something outside of your character or to a detriment of it."

This seemed to slightly amuse Harry. "Someone once said something similar;" He paused Ian leaned forward slightly. "that I had a great capacity within myself and my being and that I shouldn't be limited by paltry people around me'."

"Who said that?"

"Someone who visited the school, a friend who I've know as long as the Doctor."

"He sounds like a sensible person." Ian said.

"He would think so, the Doctor wouldn't." Harry exhaled. "But while the Doctor remains the same in many ways he, has changed far more than the Doctor." There was great sadness in Harry's voice.

"Everyone changes, grows older, matures, look at yourself." Ian smiled.

Harry nodded finishing his glass. "I suppose."

-/

The second meeting was far less eventful than their previous, though given what they were carrying Gideon and Fabian did not wish to hang around chatting.

It was only when they had returned to the barn that he found a letter inside.

_Gideon and Fabian told me this would assist travellers lost against the tide on the sea of time. _

_I hope to make your acquaintance in the future or the past._

_Good travels. _

_Albus Dumbledore_

"Do you think he knows?" Daphne asked.

Harry shrugged. "He's a sly bastard, I wouldn't put it past him."

"So this is everything you need Potter?" Malfoy walked into the barn, closing the door against the whine of bulk of the resonance generator outside. The generator he'd managed to attach to power lines without electrocuting himself, something he'd been quite pleased with. Though neither of the two wizards really understood the dangers of messing around with that amount of electricity.

Though what he was about to do was more a case of guessing. He hadn't told Malfoy and Daphne how much he was guessing his way through on memories and half discovered technologies in their own time.

He didn't want them to know how much he was just guessing his way through with this alien temporal technology.

He'd managed to connect what was left of the Dalek temporal stabiliser together to what he assumed was a communications link of the Dalek's timeship. With that was a connection plate for the stabiliser that would take in temporal energy, which would happen when he wound the time turner, as he'd been trying just sitting it on top of it for the last 15 minutes and he'd only got a baseline response.

"You might want to stand back." He said and then added. "With your wands out."

"Why Potter? It's not dangerous is it?" Draco sounded somewhat panicked.

"Yes it's bloody dangerous M-" Harry stopped himself, he was forcing himself from now on to call the not so much as git by his first name. "Draco, it might bring forth unforeseen elements." He said diplomatically, he didn't feel he needed to add that if some things that looked like pepper pots screaming 'EXTERMINATE' appeared they should follow the maxim of 'shoot first interrogate the remains later'.

Carefully Harry wrapped the chain around the plate, balancing the time turner on its side like a spinning top, then careful not to be touching any main parts of it, he spun it. Grabbing his hand back in doing so.

For a moment nothing happened and then all the surviving screens and monitors came to life showing swirling patters, including one of his own design, a simple coded message to the Doctor.

And then…it continued.

There was no immediate appearance of a blue box, or even a computer bank or horse box.

"For a time traveller your friend is not very punctual." Draco said after an hour.

Harry snorted. "He doesn't know the meaning of the word, we can wait in the house."

Daphne hesitated. "Will he know to look, I don't want to miss him."

Harry shook his head. "We'll be lucky if he gets the right house."

Harry and Draco were sat opposite a few hours later playing chess. Waiting.

Ian and Barbara had been informed of what they were waiting for, they too were sitting, reading, with John on the floor playing with his toys. Daphne seemed to be studying the newspaper. Something Harry thought was somewhat odd.

Harry was just about to get Draco into check for the third time when there was a loud flash outside the front door, making Ian and Barbara jump. Everyone else just looked up, except John who seemed in his own world. Which Harry reflected was fitting for someone whose full name was John Alydon Ganatus Chesterton, no wonder he'd adopt a stage name in the future.

"I'll see who that is." Barbara said rising from her chair when no one immediately rose to get the door.

Though Ian noted that all three of their guests had put a hand into their clothing, for their wands, an unconscious move he thought interesting.

"Hello darling, well, well, well, you have aged well. Mind if I come in?" Said a female voice. Ian frowned, a chill running down his back, he'd heard that voice before.

"Did someone call for a doctor?"

Harry had his wand out, with Daphne and Draco following suit.

"Hello sweeties." Said the woman who walked into the living room. Harry noted several things in quick succession, a gun in her holster, wrist strap on her wrist and a confident expression. Far, far too confident.

"_Accio_." Harry motioned thinking of the weapon, but didn't quite say it. The gun flew out of her holster but she caught it, mid flight, placing it and clipping it back into its holster.

"Now sweetie, stealing a girl's weapon isn't at all sporting." She beamed at them.

"Harry, this is River Song." Ian said trying to stop the magic in the room.

"RS." Daphne said in sudden realisation.

"We've met?" She said looking to Ian.

"You've met?" Barbara looked to her husband.

"Daddy, Mummy what's happening with Harry?" Suddenly all attention was directed at John who had stood up between the stand off of magic and the mystery woman.

"Johnny Chess, I'm a great fan of yours."

"Johnny?" Said Ian and Barbara quizzically.

"Future." Harry said a little bit too loudly.

"John could you go and play in the other room?" Barbara asked her son looking between the three people still holding wands and the woman whom her husband claimed to know. She walked John into the other room, shielding him from the woman, River Song. Something about the woman screamed at her senses _danger_, though she could not fathom why.

"The Doctor sends his love." River said as Barbara returned to the group who had not changed positions.

"The Doctor?" Asked Ian and Daphne.

"His love?" Asked Harry, almost at the same time as Ian and Daphne.

"On Hyspero." Ian said catching up and changing the subject, hopeful that Harry and his friends would stop pointing their wands at their house guest.

"Hyspero…" She smiled. "That was a long time ago."

"Could you stop pointing things at one another." Barbara asked as she returned to the room,

"Very phallic all this gesturing with wands." She beamed at them. "Reveals something of your personality I would think."

Harry narrowed his eyes, something about the woman was…off, he wasn't sure what it was though.

Harry lowered his wand. "How come the Doctor didn't come?"

"Busy, busy, busy and he's already here, a few times over." She said simply.

Daphne looked to Harry who seemed to be debating in his mind.

"When the Doctor came and visited me the first time, who did he speak of?"

River beamed at him. "A hermit, on a mountain side, the cadonwood trees in full bloom."

Harry smiled, and relaxed. "They were dropping their leaves."

"Depends what mood he's in." She countered and looked over to Ian. "I remember now, you spent all of your time talking to that Professor, Summerfield." River said still smiling. "I obviously wasn't interesting enough at the time. Prefer a mature woman. I'm younger now than I was then." She turned back to Harry, Draco and Daphne. "I've dealt with your equipment, very advanced for this point."

"This point?" Harry quizzed. "In time or" He paused.

"Or?" River looked and him with a challenging smile.

"Or in my personal timeline?"

"Touch the wrist strap and we'll get going." She held out her arm.

"That's your time machine?" Ian stared.

"It's not polite to stare at a girl's assets sweetie."

Harry nodded to his associates. "It's relatively safe."

"How do you know Potter, you've not seen this person before."

"A friend of mine has one, it even worked at one point." Harry said and to demonstrate put his hand on River's wrist which then arched and sparked.

River whistled. "Temporal differential, are you carrying an extra timeline in your pocket?" She asked, batting her eyelids at Harry.

Harry stared back at her as he rubbed his fingers together, he, for a moment felt older. "What?"

"You are, or were carrying extra temporal energy, another frequency with you, would have dissipated in time."

"But I hastened matters by earthing myself to a temporal field." Harry mused.

"What have you been up to that would have forced you along your own timeline to restrict" She paused looking at her wrist strap. "almost a year of temporal energy."

"Harry it must have been the statues." Daphne spoke up stepping forward, eyeing River.

"Angels?" River looked at them.

Harry stepped away from here. "The note you sent, to remind Ian about it."

"Should I get it?" Ian asked.

"Spoilers, I don't want to miss the best part." She smiled at him gently.

Daphne looked oddly at Harry and mouthed 'Spoilers?'. "I'll explain later." Harry said in response to her question.

"How close are you to your timeline?" River asked as she offered her arm out again.

Harry shrugged. "A year and a bit, I'm wandering around out there."

River nodded. "And you don't want to meet yourself." She smiled. "I know all about it. You will too." She smiled mysteriously at him.

"Come on Draco, it probably won't smash our atoms across the time lines."

"What are you driveling about Potter, what're atoms?" Draco looked at him as though he was mad and stepped forward. "Draco Malfoy."

"I know sweeties, now, let's get you back to the future!" River grinned.

Harry just shook his head and looked around, no one else got the joke. "We'll have to get the DVD." He said putting his hand on River's arm, with Daphne and Draco following suit.

"Thank you Ian, Barbara, I'll be back in about 30 years." Harry said.

"Yes, thank you." Daphne added. Draco just nodded.

And then…Harry was sure he saw the vortex, it was…an experience he couldn't really place what had happened.

Then all his skin was tingling and he could hear a voice, a Dalek voice in a very bored tone.

"Temporal activity detected, alert, temporal activity detected alert, temporal-" It was, he realised blinking against the sun coming from his workshop.

"Where…?"

Then Judith and Ioan came rushing out from his house wand and weapons pointing at them.

"Don't worry." Harry said with a smile. "They're with me." Then he turned back to River Song.

"Thank you River."

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "We'll have great fun Harry James Potter." Then she looked at Draco. "You too Mr Malfoy."

"What?" Harry looked at her quizzically.

"You'll find out soon sweetie, enjoy yourself." She winked at him and then disappeared in a flash of non-lightning.

-/

_A/N:_

_Argh. _

_This chapter took much, much longer than I thought it was going to._

_I started writing it straight after I posted the last chapter, and as some people who left reviews will know when I wrote back I was in the middle of writing this, and it took me till now to finish it._

_This is by far the longest chapter so far at 21 and a half thousand words. That's longer than some of my stories._

_I did contemplate splitting this chapter in half, or into thirds, but it plays for me as one long (fine extra long) chapter. I considered splitting it in half but I really wanted this pair of chapters not to become another arc, this was just a brief revisit. _

_This was somewhat inspired by **A Good Man Goes to War **and** The Wedding of River Song** not anything narrative wise, but just the sort of timey-wimey thrown together style that it had. _

_Now, for those trying to puzzle out continuity._

_Remember Hyspero takes place after **The Keys of Marinus**for the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan. _

_It takes place after the end of **Let's Kill Hitler** for River, she's a student so it takes place while she's at Luna University. For Bernice Summerfield it is sometime after **The Dying Days**._

_The letter that River writes and sends to Ian and Barbara is sent by River after **Flesh and Stone**. _

_The River who picks Harry, Daphne and Draco up is from a time before **The Time of Angels**, but of course as suggested she's also from a time in Harry's future where she's already met Harry and Draco before. _

_I didn't mention it too much but during the UNIT arc, it was stated by the Doctor off handedly, or mentioned somewhere, that because Harry travelled there through a time field he didn't age because he was away from his normal time. Which meant he was the same age he was when he returned from the past to the present, despite spending about a year in the 70s, this has changed however. I'll probably explain further why this temporal differential affected him in this way. _

_I also considered having Ian meet River whilst on Hyspero, I almost wrote it, but I couldn't construct it well enough in my head. _

_I know that some of the things mentioned in Susan's story are from the Cthulhu mythos, but they were also used in the Doctor Who universe (and the writer who used them got them from Cthulhu), to describe Doctor Who things, it's in the Doctor Who context that I'm using them in._

_At some point I may write a full length 'Remember Hypsero' story where you get to see what Babs, Susan and the Doctor got up to while Ian was getting drunk with Professor Summerfield. Also what else happened on Hyspero._


	37. Chapter 37

**Chapter 37**

Inside Thames House, within an area cordoned off from its corridors was a section, and within that was an office.

Harry Pearce sat down at his desk, eyeing the pile of mail that had been placed there. Problems usually came by phone, police report or red flash. Mail provided something of a distraction, a sometimes irritating one.

Taking a letter opener he started opening the letters, mostly were inconsequential reports that needed for various reasons to be shoved into an envelope and pushed around the internal mail system of Thames House.

One of them more interestingly had a stamp on it.

Inside there was a sheet of A4 paper, with two words printed on it. _Tomorrow's_ _Times. _

Pearce raised an eyebrow, promptly disposing of the letter.

Harry stood looking out of the windows of the mostly empty room formerly host to WOTAN, waiting. Ioan and Judith were around here also, away from sight of anyone coming in via the only entrances the lift and the stairs. He was quite sure the man he was meeting, or hopefully would be meeting wouldn't be taking the stairs.

He had unfinished business, and even his brief sojourn into the past hadn't made him forget how he got there and that he still needed to deal with it. But he first needed to update the man who'd sent him there.

-/

_A few days ago…_

He'd had to go and disable his Dalek temporal monitor.

"Someone's been playing around with my Dalek." He eyed Judith.

Draco and Daphne were looking a somewhat exhausted from the temporal transference.

"I think you should come inside and rest before you decide what to do next." Harry said to both of them.

Inside with them all sat down Draco was slightly more conscious.

"_You_ live here Potter?" He sniffed but accepted the mug of tea that Harry had prepared for them.

"So where've you been, sex romp through time again?" Judith asked, eyeing Draco and Daphne.

Harry sighed. "Back to the 70s."

"Again?" Both Judith and Ioan exclaimed in surprised.

"It's a complicated story, I'll explain later." Harry said quickly, he didn't want to explain and more to the point have Draco in the know about all of his business.

"You said that about 'Spoilers'." Daphne warned him.

"Oh that, that's…" He looked around Ioan and Judith.

"Spoilers are finding out information prior to the broadcast, publication or otherwise happening of events, without being able to enjoy all of the other stuff that happens around them." Judith said after watching Harry for a moment.

"Like knowing your future." Daphne said in a soft voice.

"If you like." Judith shrugged.

"Potter as much as your inane chatter doesn't fascinate me, I would like to leave." Draco said rising from his chair.

"Don't apparate." Daphne said in a stern tone.

"Why not Greengrass?" Draco said though he hadn't moved.

"The area here is rife with distortions that make apparition nigh on impossible. Quick way to fast death." Ioan said with relish watching Malfoy.

"I'll walk you to the road Draco." Harry said softly as he rose from his chair gesturing the door. Daphne followed them.

Harry stuffed his hands in his pockets and allowed himself to relax and breath the fresh 2005 air and hoped he'd never get stuck in the 70s again. At least now though he'd have a way to contact people, which reminded him, he wanted, when he'd got over the next few issues that he had to deal with to go and see Ian and Barbara.

"Draco." Harry said once they were out on the road.

"Potter." Malfoy watched him carefully.

"Keep a low profile for the next week or two." Harry turned to Daphne. "You too." Daphne arched an eyebrow. "I will need to deal with the Baron and the Baroness, they will likely not survive."

"Must you Potter?" Harry couldn't tell if Malfoy was being sarcastic or annoyed or what.

"They are useful within the wizarding community Harry." Daphne added.

"They also have in possession extremely dangerous aliens, about as old as the universe and as we know can have a disastrous affect on one's day." Harry dragged a hand through his hair.

Malfoy regarded him, though by the look of distaste as Harry dragged his hand through his hair Harry could tell he didn't like _that._

"In that you are correct Potter. But dangerous people are also useful."

"I only say keep a low profile because if the Baron and Baroness think that we've been dealt with, and according to my information we should have gone back much further."

"You mentioned that." Daphne reminded him, another of the things he thought he'd explain later _when_ he had an explanation for it, or had had time to deconstruct what River had said to him.

"So they would not expect us to be alive and may use methods to remove us from circulation to keep their means of disposal secret." Malfoy surmised. "My family has several properties in Europe, I shall retire to one of those for a few weeks."

Harry nodded and wasn't sure what to say next. "I wouldn't say it's been pleasant Draco." Harry breathed in and exhaled. "There are worse people that I could have been stuck in the past with."

Malfoy seemed amused by this. "Like the brother of the Mad Cow Potter?" He chuckled and disapparated.

Both Daphne and Harry stood on the road, nothing said for a moment.

"I would like to stay, to understand further about you, and us Harry Potter."

Harry's face turned worried and slightly scared. "This isn't…I mean…what I did…"

Daphne was shaking her head, bringing her hands to bare on Harry's body in a tender embrace. "No." She whispered kissing him.

"That's good." Harry said, smiling and returning the kiss. They had hardly been intimate during their stay in the past, despite spending most of their time together, though much of it with Draco, who wasn't exactly a turn on.

"But this experience has lead me to understand you Harry Potter, something I found intriguing, more so than anyone I have known previously."

"And here I thought revealing I spend my days up to my eyes in aliens to be the most revealing thing about me." He joked, she smiled at him.

"An interesting quirk. The rest of you is far more fascinating." She said breathing in and looking around them. "I will secrete myself away, like Draco my family has ties outside of the country, I will remove myself there. I shall contact you in a week."

Harry nodded and then conceded to her. "It may take more than a week to settle things."

"Then I shall 'call' you to simply speak to you."

Harry nodded. "I guess that's what people who are…" He trailed off, not sure, even now, what they were. "In a…"

Daphne laughed. "I think the term Harry, that we are skirting around is relationship."

Harry chuckled, and then said in a faux whisper. "But that sounds so awfully common!" He said jokingly making Daphne laugh.

"Common is marriage Harry." She said taking his hand. "A relationship is complicated."

"I think we can manage that." He said kissing her hand and then her lips.

"A week Harry." She said, disapparating.

"Previously, on the adventure of Harry Potter and friends in the past." Judith said as he sat back down inside.

Harry gave them both a pained look. "Would you like an explanation or do you just want to mock me?"

"We can do both." Judith grinned at him like an animal eyeing prey.

-/

The noise of the lift broke the relative silence in the tower, any of the computers that were in this building had long since been moved elsewhere, their noises not the whirring of magnetic tape rather the whirring of fans.

Then the doors opened revealing a single man who walked out.

"A rather proficient communication Mr Potter, I had thought you'd abandoned me." Mr Harry Pearce said as he stepped out of the lift.

"No quite." Harry said. "It pays to be careful though, given what we're dealing with."

Then Ioan, wand tucked into a pocket and a energy tracker in hand stepped out of their hiding along with Judith who was holding something slightly less friendly.

Harry smiled at Pearce and walked forward.

"These are my associates."

He seemed amused more than anything. "And you wished to appear to be an enigmatic figure waiting." He shook his head.

"No, I wanted to wait and see if you'd start shooting at me."

"Then let me save you the trouble." He said as Judith tensed he removed a mobile phone from a pocket, Ioan took it placing it on a table and then withdrawing his wand casting it upwards.

"That'll nullify the bug in your collar." He said. Pearce didn't react.

"There was quite a list of people to investigate." Harry began.

"Though by your silence of late-"

Harry cut him off. "I was silenced much like your friend in his letter."

This piece of information, by the look of Pearce had surprised him. "Your capabilities then surprise me Mr Potter."

"I have more than capable friends Mr Pearce." Harry responded.

"And which of my list were the culprits if I might enquire?"

"Baron Liam Warner-Tirnevere and Baroness Louise Liam Warner-Tirnevere." Harry replied, though Pearce didn't immediately respond.

"I see."

"They need to be dealt with." Harry said after a moment's grace to Pearce.

"How dangerous is their involvement in whatever it is effected your removal?"

Harry wasn't really sure how to answer that. In theory the Angels weren't dangerous exactly, in theory they didn't kill you, and it was possible to claw your way out of their clutches.

"They are what affected my removal." Harry replied after a moment's thought. "They are more dangerous than Whitaker and his dinosaurs, and as dangerous as the London Event, though more concentrated."

"I see." Pearce said as he walked over to the window. "I suppose there is a reason you have not progressed with measures to deal with this threat." He pondered aloud.

Harry nodded. "Given your concerns and my experience they seemed to have a set up that was designed for removing people. Whomever they might be."

"I see." Pearce said again.

"I have contacts in UNIT, but I thought you would want to keep this a British concern without uninvolving the United Nations." Harry offered.

Pearce looked at him. "Yes, the less the UN is involved in our internal concerns the better for our international dealings." Pearce said, though it seemed to Harry to suggest a dislike for UNIT.

Not that he'd had a lot of dealings with UNIT, since the '70s.

"I have some contacts in the Air Force."

"Through your Wyvern directive." Harry didn't bother to be surprised, he was after all talking with a spook.

"But I'll need people on the ground and the whole area will need to be cordoned off and kept that way."

"And this _menace_, it is secure?" Pearce asked seemingly skirting around what it was, maybe not wanting to know what it was, what _they_ were. The best way to deny knowledge is not to know it. Harry wondered if that was how spies and politicians managed their lives. That said his life and his friends and associates were also a fair balance of each not knowing everything about him. Though Daphne was the closest in knowing a lot about him. And then there was Judith who also seemed to know _too_ much about him.

"Secure enough that unless someone with knowledge of the esoteric or alien won't be able to access it." Harry replied.

Pearce watched him. "And of course you would know being the esoteric advisor to UNIT." He paused and Harry mentally cursed himself for using the word. "In the 1970s, and having briefed the Prime Minister at the time, along with working General Sir Alistair Lethbridge Stewart."

"He was a Brigadier at the time." Harry needlessly corrected. "Been digging around have you." He said, a statement rather than a question.

"You lead an interesting life Mr Potter."

"Most people are boring is how I like to think." Harry countered.

"There are resources I can access to secure a site such as the one the Baron and Baroness inhabit."

"This will need to be a kill not capture mission." Harry said calmly. Pearce looked at him and nodded.

"Very well." Pearce said somewhat reluctantly.

It was an oddly reminiscent thing to behold Harry mused, riding in an armoured assault vehicle toward the Baron and Baroness' home, explosions were around him, _not_ that he could see anything, but it had been arranged that some low yield explosives would be dropped near the house, more for shock value than to damage anything.

Harry steered his concentration back to the anti-apparition wards he was supposed to be casting as they made their way towards the house. Ioan was similarly placed, though in another APC doing likewise, there were 3 in total making their way towards the house.

Though with the explosions and whatever alien technology the Baron and Baroness had access to, anyone apparating through the attack would probably be turned into the consistency of a milkshake.

Then they suddenly came to a halt and the soldiers inside with him briefly looked to him and their commander, and then the door opened, leading out into a world of explosions and gunfire.

Unlike his comrades Harry was not dressed in anything that would suggest he was fighting an enemy, aside from the guns he wasn't wearing anything out of the ordinary.

This wasn't an enemy who was going to fight with bullets he'd reminded Pearce. He hadn't bothered to explain the full details to the army. He was here as 'Esoteric commander, LPI', another feather to add to his hat he supposed.

The explosions and noise was mostly from the soldiers, the spells were a lot less frequent as the army was shooting first at anyone pointing a stick at them. Everyone here was a hostile.

-/

The fighting had ended and now Harry, Ioan and Judith were carefully dismantling the transmat.

"We could have just blown it up." Judith said as Harry and Ioan gingerly removed the control elements.

"I don't want any energy transference to what's sitting below us." Harry said as they put another piece into another of bottomless bags they'd brought with them. They were all friendly or dangerous depending on your point of view florescent orange.

"I think that's the last active piece." Ioan said extracting his hand with a small control in it.

Judith leaned back and looked to the laptop and the meters they had with them.

"Well, suspense isn't something I need." Harry said impatiently.

Judith smiled sarcastically, or at least that was the expression Harry thought of when he saw her pull that face. "No desire to return to the '70s a third time?"

"No." Harry replied without pause. "I'll take it by your casual tone that we're safe."

"We're never safe, not now we're in the 21st century, isn't that what the Captain's always banging on about?" Judith commented.

"He does like a good bang." Harry said and then cursed himself for saying it.

Then a figure in a lengthy coat came walking down the corridor. "Mr Potter."

"Mr Pearce." Harry rose from the floor and shook Pearce's hand.

"Everything is secure?"

"For now, we'll do a full sweep before the guys leave." Harry said joining Pearce as they walked back to the main room, which was where the bodies were. Harry had wanted to get to work on the transmat straight away, but the bodies would need to be sighted by him before they were disposed of in a way he was familiar with.

Then the ashes would be disposed of at sea, just in case these people had anyone who might try to use them now that they were removed from the land of the living.

Harry indicated again the people he knew of, the Baron and the Baroness and a few of the "security" people he had seen before.

The wands had been collected in a separate area, treated much like active weapons.

Harry wasn't sure what he was to do with those, but they would be spared disposal.

Pearce spoke with the military commander before returning to Harry.

"The device is disabled?"

"Mostly." Harry said as they walked back into the house, which despite the bombs that had been dropped around it was practically intact, even the bombs dropped close to it hadn't damaged it. Wizarding building and all that, probably.

"You will contact me when it is safe."

Harry nodded as they walked back to Ioan and Judith. "Of course." And with that Pearce departed.

"Had your little chat with the spook?" Judith said eyeing the man as he walked away.

"Yes, identifying bodies is such fun." Harry replied in a deadpan tone.

"And now you have another house to add to your portfolio." Ioan said as he tied up another of the bags.

Harry shook his head, Pearce had discussed this with him, the house would be cleared out be Harry, Ioan and Judith totally, and then it would be occupied by someone from the service, someone possibly magically related, or not. Either way they'd be briefed by Harry and Pearce and then they'd get to live a rent free life, while making sure no one tried to breach the concrete bunker below.

Harry was mostly sure the Angels couldn't escape, that was what the transmat had been there for. One way in or out, and that way in was via alien technology, which meant they were relatively safe.

That said there were still lots of unknowns.

"You're thinking hard to yourself." Judith said, she'd managed to sidle up to him silently.

"You're thinking things like this don't make sense, from what you've described these statues" Ioan said as he stood up nodding to the floor. "Couldn't be used as a weapon, but here they are."

Harry raised both eyebrows in surprise. Ioan grinned at him. "You're not the only one with a suspicious mind."

Harry over to a wall and tapped it listening. "It's Hermione's time turner." He said several moments of silence. "It's been annoying me for a while."

Judith exchanged a look with Ioan. She stood up and tapped the wall next to Harry and looked at him.

"Hermione Granger and the time turner she used while you were in school?"

"To go to more classes." Ioan shook his head. "Even for the wizarding world that's dumb." Ioan said as he tied up the last bag and standing opposite Judith and Harry in front of the wall. He reached between them and knocked on the wall.

Harry and Judith looked at him he shrugged. Harry motioned away from the wall. "We should start doing a walk through this house."

"We'll need more than we brought if this is like any big wizarding house it's going to take ages to clear out." Judith said casually, she didn't elaborate on how she knew about large or any for that matter wizarding houses.

"Even then." Ioan mused as he pulled a leaver on the side of the wall and gas lamps or some sort of magic lamps illuminated the corridor. "This is a wizarding household, what secrets and killer objects might remain?" He said frowning.

Harry nodded. The house was large and it made him in no physical ways think of Grimmauld Place, the Baron and the Baroness might not be the Black family, but there was a reason that Daphne had eaten before she'd attended the party, and it wasn't just because she wanted to be prepared for any dangers she might get into with him. Though it was endearingly sweet that that was the reason she'd given him.

"So what do you think we should do?" Harry asked as they stood around one of the doors. "_Alohomora._" He said as they all quickly stepped away from the entrance as nothing happened.

"We should remove everything we can." Ioan said as Judith stepped into what turned out to be a bedroom.

"And then?" Harry asked as the enormity of the task was dawning on him, he wasn't for all his skills an expert on decontaminating a magical house of magic.

"I have some contacts that can clear the house." Judith said vaguely and then smiled at him. "And then do what you like to do." She paused and gave him a hard look. "And not sex the house Harry."

Harry stuck his tongue out at Judith. "I don't want to know what pornography you're looking at Judith." Harry said as he tapped the walls.

"Expecting false walls?" Ioan asked, Harry shrugged.

"Anything's possible." Then he added. "So we should destroy the house?" He questioned his two associates. Ioan stopped what he was doing and then broke into a grin.

Anything involving the tearing down, literally in this case of the high and mighty wizards in their upper societies that had ostracised him was something he liked.

"Got there in the end." Judith mildly.

Harry gingerly opened the cupboards, it revealed several furs, he closed them back up. "Not this down as killer clothing that we can return to later." He said turning back to Ioan and Judith.

"As much as I'd like and I'm sure you'd both enjoy blowing this place up, we need to consider security and the statues that lurk beneath."

Ioan's face fell a little bit at the prospect of not being able to destroy a one of the wizarding elite's homes.

"If we destroy the house we still need to put something here to keep an eye on it, Pearce-"

Judith interjected. "The spook."

"Yes, is going to provide someone as we've assisted him in identifying this problem and removing it." Harry paused as they reached another door. It turned out to be another bathroom. "I think we should outsource our problem, after Judith's people" Harry paused and looked to Judith who nodded. "Have done a thorough job."

"I suppose you have someone in mind then?" Ioan asked as they walked into the sizeable bathroom.

-/

The track was very much a track despite the fact that Tinworth was a Muggle and Wizard community the track that lead down to the cottage obviously hadn't seen any vehicles, especially vehicles with an internal combustion engine since at least the 1980s.

Judith was seated beside him, he'd offered Ioan the chance to accompany them, but he'd wanted to jump on his broom and check the outer areas of the property and the air above as they approached the point of finishing their work on the former Baron and Baroness' property.

It had taken them a little under a month to clear the property, something Daphne had also pointed out to him on the phone, wherever it was that she was calling from. He didn't want to know, not until he had the house cleared and everything set up, the power that the angel statues held was immense and anyone who had set up that system there obviously knew something and had their fingers in magical and normal pies.

Daphne had passed his concerns onto Malfoy or _Draco_ as she called him and implied he should too.

He wanted Judith along with him as her associates had flooded the house with a something, a smoke or a something else, she hadn't told him anything about them, not who they were, or in any detail of what they did. Except to give him an invoice for their services and a little chat afterwards. Not everything had been cleared out, but they'd managed to find some other alien technology they'd missed and some other things that he'd put in the X category of he wasn't sure what to do with.

What was certain was that the Baron and Baroness had were far more than what Daphne and Draco had said they were, he wasn't sure if they were testing stuff, or in the know or what, but they had had a lot of alien technology in their him. Not that he had a base line for the amount of alien technology in their home, but between paranoia Ginny style about aliens and himself they were at least somewhere in the middle.

"Subtlety isn't what wizards go for, it's literally its name isn't it?" Judith commented as they arrived at the cottage.

Harry shrugged. He'd sent a letter to the occupant of the house asking if they could visit with a 'business opportunity' but had left it there, while he trusted his magical mail forwarding company to be secure he still wasn't entirely sure what he was dealing with and as it was a partially a wizard's fault that he'd landed in the 1970s a second time he wanted to play it at a cautious rate. He very much did not want to end up in the '70s a third time, twice was enough, avoiding two versions of himself plus Draco and Daphne was not something he wanted to do.

They both gathered bags containing contracts, maps and other things they'd need, Ioan and his wife had provided them with contacts to get these things drawn up. Harry hadn't considered how much paperwork was involved in bringing in an outside contractor. But it was worth it rather than knocking down the house and building another one there, aside from all the ground work that might be needed there was just getting materials up there to the Baron and Baroness' former home. Plus keeping it intact meant they, both MI5 and LPI could see if anyone dropped in.

Harry walked up and knocked on the door, it was opened almost immediately.

"Heard your vehicle arrive Harry." Said a man with red hair and a bright smile who shared Harry's disinterest in spells to remove scars.

"Hello Bill." Harry said as Bill pulled him into a rough hug.

"And…"

"Judith."

"Harry's…?" Bill trailed off looking between them.

"Associate." She said with a glare at them.

Bill showed them as Fleur was coming down the stairs.

"Harry!" She said bringing him into a warm embrace. "It has been far too long that we have not seen one another, no?"

Harry grinned. "Like another life."

After a cup of tea and some friendly chats and remembrances of past glories and defeats Bill lead them into another room, probably a dining room Harry supposed.

"So what requires all this security Harry?" Bill asked leaning back into his chair.

Judith withdrew the contract from her bag and pushed it across the table. "We can discuss the particulars once you've signed this."

Harry began. "But the basics are we've got a job that requires your skills that are somewhat beyond mine. Much of the initial work's been done but I want you to clear everything up." As Harry and Judith were talking Bill had picked up the paper, and Harry noted noticed it wasn't parchment and had looked through it.

"A fairly standard contract. What have you been up to since Hogwarts?" Bill mused.

"All manner of things." Harry said vaguely, they hadn't talked of his sister; Bill hadn't been present when he'd 'returned' her. They were seemingly keeping a great amount of distance over that particular Mad Cow in the room. Harry supposed they would have to speak on it at some point, much as he'd had with the other Weasley siblings.

After reading through it he signed and passed it back to Judith.

Harry let Judith explain mostly, only interjecting when he felt he needed to. She had been more intimately involved with clearing the house. Harry had for a while when Judith had brought in her 'associates' thought that he might not need to bring in outside, or rather _more_ outside help to deal with the house.

But Judith and her associates had ended their sessions looking very ashen faced, drawn out and tired beyond anything that he had seen considering there had been no audible spells cast, though with Judith that didn't mean anything.

As Judith and Bill spoke Harry found himself standing and musing by the window and then allowed himself, with a small look to Judith who acknowledged his desire to leave the room with the briefest of acknowledgement.

She was oddly focused in her dealings with Bill or maybe just in her dealings relating to work her and her associates performed.

Outside of the room Harry caught himself thinking of the past, his past, rather than the past he, Draco and Daphne had wandered around in.

This was the house, part of his journey to Voldemort, to the end of things, to the start. Exhaling he stared into the fireplace, he became aware, as he was breathing in tasting the charcoal scent on the air that Fleur had come up beside him.

"You are finished with Bill?"

Harry shook his head as he turned to face her. "No, just Judith is more familiar with the particulars of what needs doing."

She regarded him closely. "Something you are not Harry?"

"We all have our specialities." Harry replied. "And how have you" Harry paused. "And Bill been doing. Really?" He asked glancing down the corridor.

Fleur exhaled. "Since ze war, since everything and you know of his sister no?" She watched his expression and he attempted to maintain it as neutrally as possible. "You know more than most would think Harry Potter."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "George and Ron know that I brought their sister back to them."

"Back from where Harry?" Fleur asked curiously, at least thought it was curiously, there was something more to her query, though he couldn't quite work out what.

Harry was saved from answering when Bill came down the corridor a satisfied expression on his face. Maybe it was how much LPI was going to pay him. Harry wasn't sure of Bill and Fleur's employment status, after the war and everything he'd really drifted away from everyone Hogwarts and Order related. Something Neville had pointed out when they'd last met and something Harry intended to rectify and continue to try and uphold.

A look passed between Fleur and Bill and Fleur stepped away to intercept Judith muttering something about cake.

Harry fancied some cake, but it seemed Bill wanted a word with him.

"Your friend Judith knows her stuff Harry, though I can't place where she'd know what she knows."

"You and me both." Harry muttered as he turned away from the fireplace to Bill who was also, oddly looking above the fireplace where Harry had been looking.

"I was looking into some old family stuff, after Ginny," He paused watching his expression. "George explained your involvement."

Harry nodded but didn't say anything, there was so much to say and yet there was nothing for him to say.

"It was only today that I realised." Bill said looking at the mantle piece again.

Harry stared at him unsure what to say, unsure what he was talking about.

Bill smiled sadly. "You know mum had brothers."

Harry felt goosebumps play over his skin, but Bill continued to speak.

"I remember, during the first war, when I was young, her brothers would come around, my uncles."

Harry wondered if he should make his excuses and leave, but instead he stood still watching Bill look over his shoulder at the mantle piece. Harry tried to recall what was on the mantle piece, something had caught his eye, but he wasn't sure _why_ it had caught his eye, he'd gotten distracted smelling the charcoal from the fire, but there had been something that had initially drawn his attention.

"They used to tell me stories about magic, about their lives, about the war and about the people they met." Bill chuckled. "All the funny people that they knew through the order, about Dumbledore in his big cloak, the order members out there watching Voldemort's plans." He paused. "And sometimes they, Gideon and Fabian would tell me about this interesting man, a friend they knew for a short time."

Time. The word sent chills down Harry's back.

"They'd never tell me this story when mum was around, just when they were watching over me." He paused, his voice cracking slightly. Harry recognised the expression on his face, the pain of brilliant memories. "He was a man, a time traveller" Bill grinned. "This man carried a great burden and yet he was full of life, fun and adventure. This man stood up to the great Dumbledore, stood up and won, and they were like old friends who had never met." Bill moved past Harry. "This man, saved lives working with muggles, saved the lives of the Order with the muggles. Yet his burden hadn't lifted and it was something that seemed to worsen rather than get better. But he continued to be their friend, sharing, drinking" He chucked. "and just being there with them." Bill took something off the mantle piece but Harry found his attention shifting from whatever it was back to Bill. "Then one day he said he had to go, and he was never seen from again." Bill looked down at the whatever it was he was holding. Harry realised it had to be a photo, with a strong notice-me-not charm on it, which was stopping him from noticing it. "Then when Fleur and I were clearing the last of my things from the Burrow I found a collection of photos." He said and passed the picture frame to Harry.

Harry felt chills down his back again and for a moment wasn't sure what to say.

It was _another_ photo of him with Gideon and Fabian, laughing and drinking and sitting in a familiar pub.

It was very clearly him, the photo was not nearly as aged as some wizarding photos, their eyes and in fact all of the colour in the photo was quite visible.

Even though he'd seen Gideon and Fabian barely a few weeks ago he still felt unable to say anything for a moment.

Then Bill was looking to him again. "So Harry are you the friend my uncles spoke of?"

Harry wasn't sure what to say, or what he could say. He just nodded slowly.

Bill grabbed him in a hug and Harry still wasn't sure what to say, except to hug the man back.

"Thank you." Bill said, his voice thick with emotion.

"Thank you?" Harry repeated questioningly.

Bill stepped away from him, wiping tears out of his eyes. "They were always so..." He trailed off. "The war." He stopped again. "But when they spoke of being around you, the time you spent, knowing you they were so animated."

"You don't want to know anything about it?" Harry asked after Bill composed himself.

Bill looked shocked. "That would spoil the magic of it Harry." He said with a warm smile and pulled him into a hug again.

Later Harry and Judith walked out to the Defender, Harry found Judith taking the keys and getting into the right hand side of the vehicle.

Harry wordlessly let her.

"You're in deep thought."

Harry shook his head. "Yes."

"Bill knows that you knew his uncles during your sojourn to the past."

Harry didn't even bother to ask how she knew.

"Does he know that Daphne and Draco were with you during your second time around?"

"No." Harry replied as Judith steered the vehicle along the track. "He didn't want to know anything, said it'd spoil the 'magic'." This made Judith laugh, genuinely, rather than her often sarcastic laugh she used.

-/

Harry looked up as Judith walked into the room that he was currently sitting in. It was one of the out buildings close to his house that he used for storage, many of which were now totally full of stuff from the Baron and Baroness' house. But this particular room was his 'conspiracy' room, or that was what he'd named it in his mind. It contained information and other things that didn't have answers.

"_Finally_ got it out of your mental to do list." Judith said handing him a stack of letters. "I grabbed your mail."

Harry nodded. "How's Bill?" He asked. He'd been present on the first day, but as it became apparent that it would not be a one day task he'd deferred responsibility to Judith while Ioan was running down some of his contacts, others who'd like him been ostracised and remove from the wizarding world concerning what might sit in the conspiracy room, not that he'd called it that, or even had this space until yesterday, before that it'd been in his study, but not it had a definite space.

"Working hard, indifferent to the military presence." Judith said as she sat down into one of the chairs that littered the room. Harry turned to look at her as he flicked through his letters. "Are you really going to call it the 'conspiracy room'?"

Harry glared at her. "Huh." He said as he got to a letter that carried the post mark of his magical mail forwarding company. "Uh oh." He said.

"Two utterances of noises and half words Harry, soon you'll be conversing with the rest of us mere humans."

"Oh buggering bugger." Harry said as he passed the moving photo of a disturbing image to Judith.

"So we didn't get them all." She commented upon looking at the photo.

-/

A/N:

_Another (very) long gap between chapters, again, sorry. Simply put I haven't felt like writing this for a while._

_While looking on the Harry Potter Wiki (checking some things) I realised that Bill was old enough to have known his uncles, so Harry makes his way into the Weasley family's mythology. I had intended that Harry's meeting with Gideon and Fabian become known by someone in the Weasley family (though not Molly), and it fitted to bring in Bill at this point. _

_If anyone's wondering this is still set in 2005, Doctor Who universe wise, at least where the new series is concerned not much happens until 2006 because of the 12 month gap introduced between when Rose leaves in 'Rose' and returns in 'Aliens of London'._

_Also, last chapter and the perspective changes and the formatting, sorry about that again. I did triple space the paragraphs and hoped that would translate but fanfic seems to be against me, in future I will likely just use a ++ or something to denote a perspective change. _

_I have begun the next chapter, and the motivation still exists to finish this story, Harry will meet the Eleventh Doctor._

_Next chapter is a little bit of a break from normality, at least for the first 1000 or so words, and it may be a whole chapter that isn't told from Harry's perspective and may be another 'Harry-lite' chapter. _


	38. Chapter 38

**Chapter 38**

Draco adjusted the umbrella as he sat at a desk on the rooftop of his villa and looked out across the landscape. A house elf had deposited his morning juice and departed leaving a cooling charm surrounding it against the morning sun.

The villa was in an agreeable location, and it had been one of his family's assets that he had wanted to investigate. As Potter seemed to be taking his time and inconveniencing himself and Daphne in the process, it gave him the opportunity to explore the island of Crete and the Malfoy estate's presence here.

Which was minor, very minor, which was probably why his father had had very little to do with this villa; its comparatively small grounds and almost zero influence. The groves and lands of the grounds were managed by muggles who paid a fee and a selection of the harvests to the estate, which itself was managed by a wizarding family who lived elsewhere; whom his family had had ties to going back several generations.

The monies were not great from the arrangement, but the villa was well kept and it was a rather interesting experience to visit somewhere that his name was met with vague awareness or even friendly acceptance.

Most interesting, it was almost disconcerting at times.

Sitting down at the old desk, that despite its spells and charms had been ravaged by the weather, he had needed to banish one of the house elves as it would not cease its apologies for letting allowing the desk to come to its current state.

It seemed an ancestor of his liked to sit atop the villa and perform his work, seated here looking out across the landscape. It was something that he had taken to doing. Although the umbrella was a necessity; he had no desire to look like those who tilled the fields, some standards must be up kept.

The envelope was still there, he had looked at the photo that was contained within it.

It had been late the previous night when the owl had arrived, and he had been drinking, and had only briefly looked at the photo within before putting it away, passing it off as too much fine alcohol having passed his lips.

But now, once more and in the light of day, unfettered by the previous night's excesses he could once more look over the letter and its contents.

Merely by the letter stock he knew it was from one of his father's informants, or rather one of his father's former informants, they were now solely **his** informants. His father had stepped away from the public eye, and almost entirely spent his time away from his mother also; his father's time was spent away with others who had survived the war.

His mother likewise also cultivated relationships with those who had survived the war, but she did not, as his father did hide herself away, although she removed herself from Malfoy Manor to another of their properties within the United Kingdom.

It had fallen to him to engage various groups to cleanse and ultimately renovate the manor, to attempt to wipe the memories of the past away.

Picking up the letter, and cursing silently to himself, the letter and his thoughts of the past he opened it and retrieved the single photograph.

It had become no less graphic since the previous night.

It was a relatively long exposure photograph taken by an expert photographer.

The subject was a man held down by ropes, there was a look of abject terror on his face, an expression Draco knew all too well.

But the elements of the photo, what was happening to the man, it was something he had never seen before, and there was something _alien_ about it, something unfamiliar, outside of his knowledge.

_Alien_ in the sense of the word, but also in the other _muggle_ sense of the word, something that; had it not been for his experience with Potter he would not consider even musing about. He would instead put it down to some ancient enchantment, perverted spell from the depths or something other.

Now though, looking at this image, this was not something wizarding, or at the very least it was a perversion of something wizarding with something else.

There were green tendrils of what looked like vines bursting out of the man's skin as wizards outside the frame of the photograph bathed him in spells.

When he looked at the image, he could feel his response to seeing it.

The sensations, the thoughts, the _reaction _that only wizards could have to things was the same as when he had encountered those _angels_, and again at Potter's farm estate. While it was removed somewhat, given that he was looking at an image he recognised it as a similar reaction.

There was but one individual he thought to contact concerning what he saw in the image.

It was not his agents, or rather his father's former agents, now his agents whom he used to acquire or act in certain circumstances. But rather a man whom he had not thought of at all until their recent...Draco had yet to truly quantify what his recent time together was, 'adventure' was a term he had heard Potter use during their time in the 1970s.

The term betrayed much of the weight that was forced upon them during that 'outing'.

But it had forced him to re-evaluate Potter, as a wizard and an individual from his original assumptions based on their Hogwarts experiences.

His time with Potter in the past had been a revelation of a sort, of Potter, his conduct and his dedication.

Dedication was something Draco knew very well, and at one point he might've doubted Potter's dedication to wizarding life, but having witnessed Potter's interrogation of a man when they were in the past, that drive of Potter's. It was fascinating to witness. And from what he gathered from Potter and Greengrass it was an action that Potter had performed several times before.

Those actions Potter had taken; to preserve from perversion of the 'Mad Cow' Ginny Weasley's ideals and manipulations of wizarding culture. There was something truly mad about attempting to pervert the course of wizarding culture through time travel, especially at a time such as when they were.

Draco removed a piece of parchment and a quill from the desk's drawers and settled back in his chair, musing on what to write to Potter.

There was nothing he was willing to admit to Potter concerning this photograph. Least of all that he; Draco Malfoy thought of Potter when he saw it, rather it had taken him some length of musing to consider Potter's skills as useful to this.

There were also other things that they should discuss; the muggles Ian and Barbara Chesterton.

They had offered them sanctuary when they were in the past. It mattered not that they were Potter's associates. Not to Draco.

That was something his mother had taught him, that all wizards should know, sanctuary offered must be acknowledged and repaid. He had considered seeking them out alone, but social rules would be obeyed and they were Potter's associates. Visitation would be made by himself, Potter and Greengrass, as they arrived in the past, they should return together.

That issue, however could be revisited upon when Potter had finished 'dealing with' the Baron and Baroness, however it was that Potter had decided to settle the matter with them.

Draco cursed to himself as he realised that his quill had leaked onto the parchment as he was caught mid-thought musing on what to write to Potter.

Instead, he merely placed the photograph in an appropriately sized envelope and sealed it with his seal. Potter was intelligent enough to deduce from whom and likely even where it was from, if Greengrass's perception of Potter was at least slightly accurate.

Summoning a house elf Draco dispatched it to send the letter, cleaning the quill he replaced it within the desk and finished his juice.

-/

Draco slid on a white light linen jacket, placed an equally pale hat atop his head and walked to the rear of the villa, unlike some fools of wizards he did not apparate from within any of his properties, all had anti-apparition wardings present ready.

He, and his family still had many enemies, and many more of his forbears and associates had been killed in the night through badly warded properties.

However, there was such a point where security became an inconvenience, and warding the grounds was difficult and would attract more attention. There were of course, security measures around the grounds, but considering his status here, or lack there of they were not as severe.

Walking in town was something of a liberating experience, with no one knowing him, or even acknowledging him, even now that he had been here for a few weeks, it was interesting. An experience he had not likely discovered had Potter not forced himself and Greengrass into...Draco did not think of it as hiding. **He** was not hiding, merely removing himself from active view in England.

His mother was the only individual he had informed that he was not dead, contrary to the rumours that stated otherwise, and there had already begun rumours of his demise.

Although, there were always some rumours that he, and the rest of the Malfoy line had been _removed_ by some incompetent squib or other lowly wizard. The war may have ended, but grudges lasted much longer.

It was therefore somewhat annoying that Potter found that he had to remove the Baron and Baroness, they were interesting company to keep. There was of course a small amount of danger when frequenting their soirees, but the information gathered and exchanged more than made up for some caution.

However, the power they wrought with those statues, was _very_ dangerous. A wizard with less scruples or intelligence who found themselves in the past could wreak havoc on the present. As the Baron and Baroness had done so.

Draco mused as he walked along the row of shops, just how many wizards and muggles had fallen out of favour and deal with by the hands of those statues.

There wasn't a large enough wizarding population on the island for wizarding-only establishments. But he had discovered a few locations that did stock a range of wizarding beverages. It also gave him opportunity to utilise his Greek. One of the many languages his father had insisted he have a working knowledge of. You could not be cheated if you could speak the language, was a phrase his father had never said to him, but something one of his many instructors had said when he was learning during the breaks between his Hogwarts education when others 'holidayed'.

The drinks, muggle or wizard he could consume at the villa, but there was something...refreshing sitting in the cafe, watching other's lives pass by. While this was something he could do in England, were he to venture into the muggle cities. But here, in the sunshine it was quite pleasant, far more pleasant than in cities such as London or Edinburgh where he often felt suffocated by the muggles transports and conveyance devices.

Sometimes he even allowed himself to relax and not suspect every single person was ready to extort him or end his life. Though resting in the back of his mind was the potential of these things to happen.

But leaving the villa meant he could ignore, albeit briefly the tasks that awaited his attention there. Even when he was secluded away from his regular duties there were still things to be seen to.

A few days later Draco found himself once again watching the primarily muggle life pass him by, the muggles doing their work, continuing their passage through their mundane lives. It was relaxing, and spending time here was almost relaxing.

Then someone stepped in front of his view and Draco tensed, his hand going immediately to the wand he had within his jacket pocket. There were still some people who walked around with holsters strapped to their wrists but doing so in polite, and even impolite company was particularly gauche. He'd noted that not even Potter had lowered himself to such a level of social ineptitude.

"Draco Malfoy?" The man asked, his inflection suggested to Draco's ear that English or such refined names as his were not his first language.

Draco took in the man, he was wearing a muggle worker's uniform, which seemed to suggest he was employed by a company, or perhaps an individual called DHL.

"Yes." Draco answered cautiously, not rising from his chair he looked up at the man.

The man nodded and placed a box made of corrugated paperboard on the table next to his drink and cake, something of an indulgence for him, but it was rather flawed yet still delectable. While the house elves were experts in food preparation, there was something he found interesting in a not-perfect construction of a foodstuff.

Perfection could become so tiresome sometimes.

The man handed him a bulky muggle device and a thin _synthetic_ writing stick, like a pencil, though much shorter and thinner.

"Sign there." He motioned with a grubby finger.

Where the man was motioning was an illuminated area which also bore his name and below it the word 'Signature' in a functional typeface.

Draco attempted to sign his name, but the device or the writing instrument failed to function correctly and his signature was rendered as just a scrawl.

"Never works right." The man commented as he took the device back from him and departed.

Draco watched the yellow muggle conveyance progess up the street before he turned his attention to the box.

It was addressed with his name on it, and the name of the cafe that he was sitting in front of.

Draco tensed again and looked around the cafe and the street for some sign that someone was watching him. _Spying_ on him.

The thought annoyed him greatly, but he had been careful everyday he had ventured out. No one from England knew him here, and if anyone were to seek to harm him, doing so here would be the worst place to do it.

If he were to try and kill or harm him, he'd do so when he departed the villa or where he apparated to near the town. Not here, in view of muggles.

Draco returned to the box, looking at the various warning labels; concerning what could not be posted in the box, there was a customs declaration as well though in transit the statement seemed to have become scuffed. He knew well about these declarations, though not of the muggle design, the wizarding equivalent was just as irritating but only biding when sending items to diplomatic locations and other locations such as that.

The wizarding post was much less interfered with than the muggles' so called efficient postal system.

On the back he found a small tag that indicated that one should rip across the lines to gain easy access to the box.

It was an efficient system, especially as he did not have his letter opener nor could he easily remove his wand here.

Draco mused he could have returned to the villa and removed the contents there, but the box had been addressed to him here at the cafe.

That intrigued him enough to explore the contents of the box here.

Pausing before he opened the box he motioned to the waitress for another drink.

Inside the box was a large, though it could be held in one hand, muggle telecommunications device. It was recognisably a 'telephone'.

There was no included documentation with the device inside the box, nor any indication of who had sent it or why.

Then it started to make a noise, it was harsh noise that he had heard from many muggles devices before.

There were several buttons on the device, numbered buttons and also two others a green one and a red one.

Draco had seen muggles using devices such as these, and they seemed to use a button to begin and a button to end their use of these device.

Draco pushed the green button and raised one end of the device to his ear.

"_Malfoy, you are as intelligent as I thought_." Came the voice of a smug sounding Potter.

"There are plenty of wizards that are not as stupid as the people you associated with at Hogwarts Potter." Surprisingly Potter chuckled.

"_You are right Malfoy on that count." _

"What do I owe this device delivery and your" Draco paused searching for the word. "Call to me?"

"_Can't I just call, have a chat with you" _Potter paused and his tone changed slightly. "_Draco?_" It sounded like he had been instructed, no doubt by Greengrass to address him on a first name basis.

They had been through several situations that would warrant a first name association Draco had to admit that, silently of course to himself.

"No, Potter, we did not converse at all following our time at Hogwarts."

"_Times change Draco. And might I note that you sent me something._"

Draco raised an eyebrow and smiled briefly as the waitress placed another hot drink down before him.

"I thought that it might be on your particular experience level Potter."

"_And I thank you for bringing it to my attention. I won't ask how you came by the knowledge, I expect you have various tendrils in various places._" Draco noted the odd turn of phrase 'tendrils'.

"A man of my standing has several sources of information." He replied.

"_As do I Draco._" Potter added his voice calm. "_You should know that it has been dealt with_." Draco knew what Potter did when he 'dealt' with things.

"The wizard?" Draco asked curiously.

There was some silence. "_All infected individuals were dealt with, and everyone else involved was debriefed with extreme prejudice_."

Again Draco knew what Potter was talking about and even knew what he had done, having seen Potter's work first hand.

"I see."

"_I thought I'd also let you know the Baron and the Baroness and their abode has been dealt with." _There was a permanence to Potter's tone with regard to 'dealt with'.

Though considering how Potter dealt with things this could mean anything.

"Dealt with?"

"_I'm sure you understand Draco I can't reveal my operating procedures with even you." _Potter paused all too confidently. "_But their residence is secure and has been cleansed of any trace of them._"

"I see Potter." Draco said as he took a sip of his drink and then turned the box over, wondering if there was a tracking spell on the box, he asked Potter just that.

"_Nothing so simple. I've picked up some skills since Hogwarts Draco. Finding your villa was not easy. It is a rather nice abode by the way._"

"Thank you." Draco found himself saying without realising it, and briefly forgetting that Potter had managed something of a feat finding his lodging using only what he had sent him.

"I am not at my lodgings at the moment Potter."

"_No, but parcel tracking is a wonderful thing._"

"I take by your tone Potter that there are an innumerable ways you could have contacted me and located me instead of that."

"_Very perceptive Draco._" Potter sounded amused. Maybe Potter just liked to converse with a wizard that, unlike the male Weasley had more intelligence than a ghoul.

"Does this mean Potter I may resume my regular schedule now that you have finished dealing with elements of wizarding society?"

"_Yes. Draco._" Potter said calmly. "_By the way, you can keep the phone, my number's already there should you need to contact me urgently."_

"You're very presumptuous Potter. Have you forgotten about magic?"

"_It's shielded against most magic, and no I haven't Draco. As I said just in case. We should also get together and see Ian and Barbara."_

"I agree Potter."

"_Good, well. Be seeing you Draco_."

"Potter." And then Draco looked down and pushed the red button on the phone with a satisfied smirk.

-/./

A/N:

When I was musing on where Draco would be in Europe my first thought was somewhere wintery and cool. Maybe he's in large chalet somewhere, or hanging out in Finland or Norway, or in a castle in France of Germany.

That's where my imagination went immediately, and that's why I haven't written that.

Instead, it's pretty much the opposite.

I did consider changing how I'd written the previous chapter (I started this one before I posted the previous chapter) so Draco would say 'somewhere in the world' instead of specifically mentioning Europe. But I think he, and the wizarding world that relates to the Malfoy line etc is tied to Europe.

I messed around with this chapter for a while, and I played with the idea of having Draco meet some aliens or something. But it just seemed a bit awkward. It's still Draco Malfoy and he's not Harry, upon seeing anything alien and dangerous to his person Malfoy would not go in spells a blazing.

Now to the battle with the second Krynoid, that's what the image showed, another Krynoid taking someone over. Or more to the point the lack of a second battle.

It's another thing I messed around with, and once you've written one battle sequence with a huge alien plant creature where is there to go?

It'll continue to be mentioned and deconstructed a bit next chapter, but there won't be a blow by blow action sequence as I did previously at Hogwarts. It's something I've done already and while I wish to continue the ideas from it I don't want to write another battle sequence like it.


	39. Chapter 39

Chapter 39

Harry flicked through the images.

They'd taken extensive photos with film and digital when they'd raided the facility.

Even now looking back at the experiments they were _shocking_, shocking to him. Which was saying something for a man who had tortured people to death.

Harry smiled a grim smile to himself and wished the sun wasn't shining so brightly through the window. Such bleak thoughts that he was having weren't meant for sun filled days such as today, they were already heading into autumn. Sun wasn't meant for such dark times.

Finding the facility had not been beyond difficult, he'd used similar techniques in the 1970s, he'd used those same techniques to find Draco's holiday hideaway.

Harry returned his focus to the images and wished he hadn't, what they had found there was distressing. That was putting it lightly, very lightly in fact.

Irritatingly the wizards, and they were all wizards or witches there had not had a lot of information, despite a vigorous debriefing session performed by himself and Judith. Ioan wasn't the debriefing type, but after what they'd all seen he'd been tempted.

The subjects did not appear to have gone into the experiments willingly.

It had taken a liberal use of fiendfyre to stop the fully grown Krynoids, and even then in its death throws it had managed to put the spell out. Even through the biohazard suit he was sure he could smell the gag inducing mix of mulch and human bodies rotting, burning.

Everywhere there was evidence of intense magic at work, not to control the Krynoids but to manipulate them, or something.

Some of the wizards had tried to escape, splinching and spraying their bodies across the room as they hit the anti-apparition wards in their panic or determination to leave.

Some others surprisingly committed suicide, either through it seemed breaking an unbreakable vow or other forms. It was surprising to him at the time.

What information they had gathered supported the other information he had been collecting for some time.

They'd not mentioned any affiliation, but to have the sizeable facility away from prying eyes meant that they had to have some support within the Ministry. None of that was mentioned exactly, but during prolonged "interviewing" that had been alluded to.

It did lead to several questions, none of them had good answers and none of the information he'd learned in the past few days changed anything.

"Harry?" Called a female voice of which he knew well and it made him smile.

"In here Daphne." He called as he closed the image viewing program and setting the computer back to background monitoring of the other computers which took in monitoring feeds from his satellite and space observation array that was mostly hidden out in the fields outside the house. He was relatively sure they weren't due for any invasions this year, however from what he'd gathered from the Doctor this year's Christmas would be the last 'quiet' Christmas for a few years.

Daphne walked in and gave him a controlled smile that asked if what was on the screen was something that she could be looking at, Harry smiled back at her as they kissed.

They, or rather he had slowly been getting used to the idea that there could be someone in his life, regularly, that he didn't work with and didn't want to kill him. It was a novel experience, one that he enjoyed very much.

"It will soon be Christmas Harry." Daphne said in a serious tone.

"As is indicated by the sun outside refusing to give way to snow, ice and cold weather." Harry commented, Daphne looked at him slightly annoyed as she sat down on the sofa he'd placed in his study as this was where he seemed to have a lot of his conversations, or it seemed his serious conversations. The less serious ones involved tea and biscuits, though some of the serious ones also-

"Harry" Daphne arched an eyebrow.

"Sorry, distracted." Harry exhaled in thought and looked to the computer again. It held a record of the things that had disturbed him, but what he'd witnessed had been far more disturbing, and the reasons why still alluded him, aside from building to a wider picture.

Daphne's expression softened. "Is there anything I can-" Harry shook his head.

"These are my nightmares to bare Daphne." He smiled gently over to her. "You said something of the Christmas period approaching?" He asked.

Daphne watched him, seemingly judging his response for a split second. Then she tensed, he'd not seen that expression not just on her face, but playing out across her body. "As our" She paused. "Relationship has progressed, my mother and father would like to meet the man that I have become acquainted with."

Harry looked over at her in mock surprise. "Do I get to meet this man?" Daphne smiled at him. "It is something of a formality, with many families wishing to meet their siblings partners."

"Not really something I know much about Daphne." Harry got up from his chair to sit down with her, embracing her in a hug.

She relaxed into his arms. "It is not something _formal_, Harry. Just a formality of family life."

"I don't remember Ron ever saying anything like that going on between Fleur and Bill, but Mrs Weasley didn't really like Fleur anyway." Harry mused.

Daphne sniffed in amusement. "Perhaps the Weasleys not. The Weasleys historically have made some interesting choices."

"Like the mad cow." Harry grunted.

"Your name for the youngest Weasley, Draco found it most amusing." She commented.

"Draco would." Harry muttered. "We, I mean us and Draco should also go and see Barbara and Ian, thank them for their hospitality properly, now that we're back in our own time zone."

"'Back in our own time zone.'" Daphne repeated him. "So quickly terms like that become pedestrian Harry." She turned around to look him in the eyes, they were full of amusement.

"Does that worry you?" He asked curiously.

"No." She with a smile that stretched past her lips.

"Maybe I should have bought a bigger chair." Harry commented as he dried his hair. "Though I did buy that one for sitting and having conversations on, not-" Harry lost his point of musing as Daphne exited the bathroom.

"Not?" She asked amused.

Harry shook his head. "Nothing."

"So, will you agree to attend?" She asked as she dressed and dried her hair with a wave of her wand and watched as Harry rubbed his hair with a towel, still amused that he did it that way.

Harry nodded. "When and where?"

"2 weeks prior to Christmas Day Harry, we would not want to intrude on any Christmas celebrations you have." She said as they continued through the house to the kitchen.

Harry nodded, though he didn't really have any celebrations planned, his had been scattered in recent years, and would be even more in years to come. Usually he used it as time to reflect.

"There are no concerns to be aware of when we are to meet?" Daphne asked carefully.

"There's nothing in the calendar." Harry answered, the concerns Daphne was alluding to was his knowledge of the future from the Doctor.

"Where is this calendar of yours Harry?" Daphne asked curiously.

"In my head mostly." He said.

"Very likely the safest place for such information." Daphne mused.

"That doesn't guarantee there won't be trouble, but hopefully there's nothing that will happen."

Daphne nodded. "We shall be meeting at my family's Kensington residence," She paused and smiled over at Harry. "So you may travel in whichever conveyance of your choosing." Harry grinned at her. "My sister will not be joining us, she has decided to broaden her experiences in the New World."

"Can't she pop back?" Harry asked, Daphne stared at him.

"From the New World Harry. Apparatition over such distance is difficult even for an experienced wizard. The portkey for her to travel there was lengthy in its bureaucratic preparations."

"Like muggle international travel then." Harry said.

"Though still quicker, those muggle procedures." She shook her head.

Harry passed her a mug of tea. "There was one aeroplane that I wish I could have shown you, Hermione and I flew on it while I was investigating something in America." Harry explained with enthusiasm. "It flew at faster than the speed of sound!"

"Flew?" Daphne asked curiously.

"The authorities grounded the fleet. I've been looking into the feasibility of…" He trailed off shaking his head. "Even for my organisation it's a bit of a luxury for the small amount it would be used, but I had some great ideas to make it more useful." Harry mused.

"What you need is a partner Harry." Daphne said. "I'm sure my mother and father will find something to speak to you about."

Harry's eyes went wide. "You're not just going to leave me to talk to them Daphne?" He asked in a slightly panicked tone that made Daphne's eyes sparkle in amusement.

"I will be there Harry, you need not worry about being asked of the price of gillyweed on the open market or how one attains a licence to import certain materials."

"Or who is shagging whom at recent dinner parties." Harry muttered.

"Now there are two less hosts." Daphne commented.

"They did try to kill us." Harry added.

"Harry plenty of people make threats, it's a way of doing business, I don't kill every person who threatens me." Harry stared at her. "But I understand why you removed them." She watched him. "And all their items from their home."

Harry raised an eyebrow at what she was getting at. "Everything related to them was nullified and dealt with by capable authorities."

Daphne smiled mischievously. "I have my business Harry Potter and you have yours, I think it would make our lives quite boring if we didn't have secrets from one another."

"Not just secrets, 'confidences' I think you've called them." Harry said equally as playfully.

"Of course Harry Potter, confidences are just as important as secrets." Daphne said as she wrapped her arms around Harry embracing him. "I saw your _bag_, planning a getaway?"

Harry chuckled lightly, his bag, his expanding bag which didn't use magic but was still larger on the inside than without. It was one of the many items he had and used regularly that fascinated Daphne.

"No, just a quick visit to go and see a friend, I need a consultation on something."

By his tone Daphne could tell it was something that was worrying him and embraced him in her hug a little tighter. "This is your most recent task you undertook?" She asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yes. There are some troubling things that I'd like a more detailed answer in."

"That are outside of your considerable talents?" Daphne asked teasing slightly.

"My talents are varied" He paused smiling at her. "But some expertise occasionally lies outside of what my associates that I work with."

"How long will you be gone?" She asked as the broke apart from their embrace.

"Hopefully no more than a day or so." Harry said.

-/

He'd driven up, much to the displeasure it seemed of the Headmistress. Though he had sent a letter asking if it was okay for him to come up to the school.

The school may be unplottable, but that didn't stop the town from being on some maps, and unlike last time when he'd needed a train to get here, he'd done some extra work and found several tracks that got close to the town and therefore the school.

"Mr Potter, you decided to pollute the serenity of Hogsmeade once again with this contraption of yours." She said eyeing him as he got out of the Defender. It was covered in mud from the recent rain and even some snow that was beginning to fall.

It was quite removed from his house in the south of England, coming back here to Hogwarts.

"Why you can't use the floo network like a normal person." She said shaking her head at the Defender.

"I'm not a normal person Professor." Harry said as he slung his back over his back and fastening his coat.

"No, that I do agree with Mr Potter." She said, Harry couldn't tell if she was joking, though there was something in her eyes, maybe the hint of a twinkle of amusement, or it could be a bit of grit in the air, you never could tell with Professor McGonagall.

"Professor Longbottom has taken over-"

"Professor?" Harry arched an eyebrow in surprise.

"Yes Mr Potter." She said annoyed he'd interrupted her. "Professor Longbottom has taken over Professor Sprout's classes, Pomona has decided to move out into the private sector, with Professor Longbottom showing that he is very capable within the role." She said with some pride.

"Are we in danger of loosing you to retirement as well Professor?" Harry asked in a half joking half serious tone.

The question seemed to ruffle her. "Certainly not Mr Potter, while I live and breathe I shall be at this school, someone has to teach the students here."

Harry laughed. "Good to know you'll continue to surprise children with your catty antics." The Professor looked over to him with a mild glare.

"So what is it that you would like our herbology professor to advise you on Mr Potter? You seemed perfectly knowledgeable on your previous visit."

Harry nodded. "Has all the damage been repaired following my previous engagement here?"

"Per your and your" She paused. "Associates' instructions, yes, all related matter was incinerated and the site cleared and repaired."

"I am quite knowledgeable Professor." Harry said picking up from her previous question. "But I have something from a recent" He paused, the memories of what he saw flashing through his mind for a moment. "encounter." He said after a moment. "Something that I'd like an expert opinion on, from a magical horticultural perspective and certain interactions that might have happened." Harry explained in as vague yet specific terms as he could.

They came to a junction in one of the corridors they had been walking down.

"I believe you know the way to the greenhouses Mr Potter, Professor Longbottom should be finishing a class in a few minutes." Harry nodded, he'd forgotten that Hogwarts still had students in it. He'd not really thought about it the last time he'd been here. But this time he would likely be walking past students.

"Thank you Professor."

"I will be in my office should you need to speak with me further Mr Potter." She said Harry looked down the corridor that lead to the greenhouses when he remembered there _was_ something that he wanted to talk to the Professor about, but when he turned around she was gone.

Harry frowned looking around for a moment, she couldn't have disappeared _that_ quickly.

It seemed he'd arrived a bit early, with Neville inside one of the greenhouses _teaching_, it was odd, to see his old school friend in there teaching. Of course he'd been doing a bit of that the last time he'd been up here, and they'd sent a few letters back and forth since then. Harry was determined not to let their friendship fall by the wayside. But seeing him in there with all those young students, it was odd, and none of those students would have to worry about giant snakes in the plumbing or psychotic Defence teachers or the possibility that they may not even survive the year.

Then in between his musing the door opened and the students were pouring out. As they left he caught bits of their conversation. "What have we got next…who's that?...maybe he's a professor….he's not a professor…looks like a muggle…does he even have a wand…"

"You'll be the talk of those Slytherins this afternoon." Said a voice from within the greenhouse.

"That's what I set out to do when I was lurking outside, be the talk of a bunch of Slytherins. Centre of attention, that's where I want to be." Harry commented sarcastically as Neville lead him through to his office.

"Grown here at Hogwarts in one of the new Greenhouses built after" Neville paused as he poured the tea. "After your visit last time." He looked at Harry a little bit worried. "You're not here to cause more destruction are you?"

"I'm not Sutekh Neville."

"No." He smiled. "It's good to see you though, your letters are as infrequent as they are vague Harry."

"I'm busy Neville, there's always aliens around and magic and all the things in between."

"I also heard you were dead for a while." Neville dropped into the conversation casually.

"Oh?" Harry asked just as casually.

"Along with Daphne Greengrass and Draco Malfoy."

Harry threw up his arms. "You've caught me out Neville I've been in the Caribbean having a threesome sex romp with those two."

Neville just about managed to not spit out his tea. "Funny Harry."

"Rumours of their deaths were propagated only as long as they were useful for me." Harry said more seriously.

"And you?"

"I couldn't give a flying fig if people thought I was dead. Not that I care much about Draco either."

Neville looked surprised at him. "Draco?"

Harry mentally swore at himself, _and_ at Daphne, and for that matter Draco flipping Malfoy. "Malfoy."

"Now you've got me worried Harry." Neville said as he recovered from nearly choking.

"Why?"

"That you might be in a relationship." Neville said in a semi-serious tone.

"With Daphne, not Draco." Harry said. "Not that we're publicising it or anything." Harry quickly added.

Neville smiled broadly and then laughed. "Harry Potter, in a relationship. Good of you to join the rest of wizarding folk."

"And what of your good self Neville Longbottom?" Harry asked jovially.

After some time chatting together, something which they hadn't been able to do the last time he'd visited Neville put down his cup with a note of finality.

"So Harry you didn't come all the way up to Hogwarts just to chat, though it's been nice to talk with someone normal."

"If you're taking me as a reference to normal then the other people you're chatting with must be quite unusual."

Neville laughed. "You know, scars from the war, memories of…" He shook his head.

Harry nodded in silence, after a few moments he reached into his bag and pulled out two glass cylinders and placed them on the desk, both had biohazard symbols stencilled in black. He then removed another two, these had the same symbols in red.

The four represented 2 of the stages of transformation that he'd found at the facility, in human and in Krynoid form. One canister contained as uncharred as he could find and the other contained charred remains following the fiendfyre, the spell that had been combated in some way by the Kryonoid.

"These samples I collected at a recent raid on a facility. They're remains." Harry said as Neville was tipping one of the canisters from side to side, he carefully put it down.

"Remains?" He said in a dull voice.

Harry took a breath and prepared himself to be as neutral as possible with the information. The reality had been more horrific. "At the facility my organisation raided there were experiments involving the creature we combatted here at Hogwarts."

"The krin-something?" He asked eyeing the canisters carefully.

"Krynoid. We thought when we did out cleanup we got all the seedpods."

Neville stared at him. "You don't think you did?"

Harry shook his head. "No." He replied darkly. "Analysing what I saw and the remains goes somewhat beyond my abilities, and that of my associates."

"I thought you were an expert in _aliens_."

"Just a capable amateur, but this level of magical manipulation, I thought I'd come to someone who has some expertise." Harry said Neville blinked as he realised Harry was speaking of him.

"Me?" He asked. Harry nodded. "Harry I'm-"

"A Professor at Hogwarts Neville." Harry reminded.

"Yes, it's a title I'm still getting used, to, filling Professor Sprout's shoes-"

"Gum boots more like." Harry interjected, earning him a look from Neville.

"Don't you have experts Harry or you?" Neville looked at him hopefully.

Harry shook his head and for a moment had a flash of memory of one of the people they'd debriefed talking impassively about their experiments young people. Harry suppressed a shudder as Neville looked at him. "As I said I've got experience with aliens and magic, but this…your herbology knowledge far exceeds mine." Harry paused. "And I think the spells that were cast on these" He paused again thinking of a neutral word that didn't allow a look into the horror Judith, Ioan and himself witnessed. "Samples were possibly based in herbology." Harry stopped.

"Or?" Neville pressed.

Harry pursed his lips. "Or the other arts of magic."

Neville nodded slightly but didn't say anything for a moment as he regarded the canisters. "What do the symbols mean, I remember seeing them when you and your friends were at Hogwarts last time."

"It's a muggle symbol for biohazard."

Neville shook his head. "Biological hazard." Harry clarified.

Neville put the canister down carefully, watching the substance within as he did.

"The black one is ash." Harry paused. "After I used fiendfyre on them." Neville's eyes widened as he looked at the canister again.

"There shouldn't be this much remains Harry."

"I know." Harry exhaled. "The red ones are a lot more volatile I'll give you a suit to wear if you want to take the remains out of the canister. They're the remains that were much less charred." Harry finished, Neville had a sick look on his face.

"You mean this used to be…?" Harry nodded.

"Plant or human the two become indistinguishable in the process." Harry quoted, it was in a report, though the quote was supposedly from the Doctor.

Neville seemed already distracted. "I should be able to give you an idea what they did to this" Neville stopped. "To the person this used to be."

"People." Harry corrected without much emotion in his voice.

"People?" Neville asked, alarmed.

Harry nodded, he didn't really want to elaborate further on exactly how many people had been involved in the experiments.

Neville seemed to lapse into thought before realising that Harry was still in front of him.

"This might take more than today Harry." He said looking at him.

Harry nodded, he'd thought it might and said so. "I'll stay in Hogsmeade-" He was cut off from saying anything further.

"You won't. Prof-" He shook his head and smiled a little bit. "Minerva will let you stay and there are guest quarters in my section of the castle."

Harry nodded. "Fine, but I'm not eating in the Great Hall." Neville laughed. "I'm merely someone from a League looking for a professional opinion."

"I understand Harry, you got enough pointing and staring when you were here before." Neville said sombrely.

Harry nodded slowly.

"I suppose you brought some muggle vehicle." Harry indicated he had. "You should move it up to the stables, they're empty at the moment but it'll be away from Hogsmeade." Neville said rising, making sure the canisters were firmly on his table, and then made his way to the small fire at the side of the office.

"Thanks Neville, I really appreciate this."

"It's not everyday a paranormal investigator comes asking for my assistance Harry."

Harry had left Neville to his work, and his classes.

He'd wondered around the grounds for a while, it seemed like Hagrid was out somewhere.

It was very strange returning here, this time in the full light of day without anything dangerous or terrifying around.

Those things only lay in his memories and his imagination, or out in space or away from Hogwarts.

Compared to his time here Hogwarts was a bastion of safety, there were of course still dangers, he had no doubts that the Forbidden Forest was still forbidden, that the whomping willow could still throw and crush you into the ground if you got too close, and that fright and discovery still lurked in the corridors of the school.

Harry wondered why no students, at least during his time never returned, either to consult Professors or as visiting speakers or other things like that. He knew from Hermione that things like that happened in universities.

It was, during these musings that he realised _why_ he was musing at all, it was to distract himself from the uncomfortable feeling he had here, that he didn't feel the last time he was here.

Last time was full of danger and potential death.

Now, here, while there was danger it was more of a perceived danger, something that had the _potential_ to injure.

He didn't like it, nor did he like the feeling of having nothing to do but wait, it was…annoying.

More than annoying in fact.

He supposed he could go out for a drive, but he wanted to stay on site in case there were any problems, he could go to Hogsmeade, but did the town hold anything special to him, aside from the same feelings as being here in the grounds of Hogwarts?

It was early in the afternoon that he found himself wandering back up the castle and at the foot of the stairs to the headmistress' office, the stairs and door and everything seemed…he couldn't place it.

_Maybe_ it was that he liked danger and excitement, as both Hermione and Daphne had suggested to him on separate occasions.

That the lack of anything to do, or the promise of safety was what was getting at him.

"Who wants to be safe all of the time?" He muttered to himself as he managed one knock on the door.

"What have you got my Herbology professor into this time Mr Potter?" Asked with arched eyebrow the Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"Only the very tip of the iceberg Headmistress." Harry said as he walked in and took the chair offered with a slight gesture of her hand. "I have seen the totality of the nightmare and it is not something that I would want to get Neville or anyone at Hogwarts into." Harry said.

Tea arrived, or maybe it was there hidden by a book, and was poured with efficiency through the wave of a wand.

"I suspect there is a 'but' to come from you Mr Potter."

Harry smiled gently at his old Professor.

"I've been curious about something." He said, Minerva McGonagall looked over her glasses at him.

"I have known you for many years Mr Potter, this is a question that has more than just made you curious."

Harry had to hand it to her, he doubted she was doing things that Dumbledore did, but there was something in the woman's observation and phrasing that was somewhat miraculous.

Instead of giving her the satisfaction, for the moment of an answer he just dipped his head in an affirmative as he took a sip of his tea.

"It's Hermione's Time Turner."

"Ms Granger's Time Turner?" She asked, somewhat surprised by his question.

Harry nodded. "An incredibly powerful piece of temporal mechanics given to a young woman for the purposes of attending extra classes."

"Ms Granger as you well know Mr Potter is very intelligent." McGonagall countered.

Harry blinked and wondered if he'd stuttered or missed a word. "I've been to the Department of Mysteries and seen the time turners that remain." Harry paused. "I've walked through the winds of time." He continued, though he admitted to himself he was being somewhat dramatic with his turn of phrase. "Time travel is incredibly complex, complicated and fraught with the possibility of paradox." He paused again and looked around and then back to his former professor. "And yet a Time Turner was granted for use by an, admittedly highly intelligent, though still young witch." He paused again. "To attend more classes?" He exhaled slowly so he didn't swear.

"I'm not sure what you're asking Mr Potter."

"Did you ask to use a Time Turner or was it a suggestion put to you?" Harry asked.

McGonagall shifted slightly. "The Ministry offers several things to Hogwarts, work experience placements, scholarship funding, places for graduating Hogwarts students, and yes Mr Potter the chance to use valuable Ministry equipment that is not often used by the Ministry itself."

That was a lot of information, which Harry filed away in his mind for another time. Of all the things listed he'd never heard of anyone, at least during his time at Hogwarts getting anything aside from the Time Turner out of the Ministry.

"So, who in the Ministry offered you the use of a Time Turner, and were there any stipulations on its use?" Harry asked.

McGonagall shifted again. "That is privileged information Mr Potter."

Harry raised an eyebrow and set his tea cup back in its saucer. "Need I remind you Headmistress that it was someone in the Ministry that endangered your school it was myself and my associates that saved it from further damage." This information did not seem to sway the Headmistress. "I am also a registered and paid League, I have powers and privileges of my own." He mentally added 'like the location of what looked to be a mind analysis machine that a subsidiary of UNIT had in storage.' It was something he intended to liberate from them at some point.

The Headmistress looked over her glasses again, regarding the not quite threat he'd just made to her. "I am quite aware with what you and your League professionalise in Mr Potter." Harry wondered if she was going to pick up her wand and ask him to leave, but instead she just gazed at him.

As they held one another's gaze if Harry mused on whether he could hypnotise her. As the silence progressed he was coming to the conclusion that it _might _be possible. He wasn't sure what she was trying to do, he was friends with two Time Lords, one of which had taught him how to influence people through gaze, another who destroyed planets, regimes and civilisations for a living. Himself, well he'd faced mad cows and megalomaniacs and while she'd been intimidating at one point in his life, the gaze of Minerva McGonagall was not that now.

After an amount of time had passed she broke her gaze with him and took a piece of parchment from her desk and wrote some names on it.

"There Mr Potter. Those are Ministry individuals who assisted with a variety of elements from the Ministry to Hogwarts and her students. The offers are never made by one person."

Harry took the letter and noted the present tense but didn't say anything.

"Thank you Headmistress." He took the rolled piece of parchment, he'd read it later, lest he reveal anything he knew about the names in front of the Headmistress. Just in case. "Neville's offered for me to stay tonight should I need it."

"I am aware Mr Potter." She said.

"I won't attend in the Great Hall, I'll remain away from the student body." He said as he rose from his chair.

"Very well Mr Potter, it is good not to have the students' study disrupted, especially in the lead up to their Christmas break."

"Of course." Harry said, inclining his head slightly. "Good day Headmistress, and thank you."

Harry left the office wanting to read the list of names but there was a time for restraint and he'd waited this long to get some answers.

Mostly he hadn't gotten any answers to the logical questions he'd asked.

_That_ was annoying that those questions of sense and logic concerning Time Travel hadn't been answered.

Draco was knowledgeable in the dangers of temporal travel, yet the question seemed to just flow over McGonagall.

Although, Harry mused, she hadn't been too accepting of the idea of aliens, or that the Krynoid could be an alien.

There was also the fact that Ginny wasn't the only nutbag out there, and that there was a spectrum to all populations and some were nuttier than others.

He briefly thought of the Room of Requirement, but he wasn't sure what it might create in his current mindset, so instead opted to go and find Neville, the names he could read later in the day.

Neville he found was cleaning up after a class.

"First Years." He explained as he gestured with his wand and some smashed pottery reassembled itself. "Where've you been?"

"Threatening the Headmistress, yourself?" Harry responded casually.

He and Neville shared an evening meal, he'd said he still didn't feel comfortable at the head table looking down at all the houses.

Him being here gave him an excuse _not_ to sit up there with the other, much older teachers.

Now it was later, much later into the night, with them musing on the past.

"Do you ever…about the war?" Neville asked trailing off and coming back to the subject.

Harry nodded. "Sometimes." He paused. "I…I went to Cedric's grave." Neville looked over to him. "I think I'll continue to go to his."

Neville nodded.

Harry briefly flirted with telling Neville about his recent extra-temporal adventures. But then quickly dismissed the idea, that he had been, not once, but twice to a time before Neville's parents were tortured and even fought alongside them. That would be too much he thought for the man opposite him to know.

After some silence Neville broke it.

"Well Harry I've got to get going, still some papers to mark of my students' work. I have some spells and a few plants in proximity to your canisters and should have a better idea in the morning."

Harry rose from his chair with Neville. "I hope some of those shoulds turn into wills."

Neville looked at him strangely for a moment and then laughed. "There's nothing certain with that level of…" He trailed off. "Complex magic applied to wizards." He said in a more serious tone.

Harry walked with him to the door.

"I'll see you in the morning Harry."

"Good luck with your paper work." Harry said as he closed the door.

Now he was alone with the list McGonagall had given him.

The names on it weren't a surprise.

Some of them he recognised, others he didn't, one of them he'd killed himself personally in the past. One of them, had seen fit to send him to do his bidding it seemed. Andrew Fuller, the man in the Ministry who'd sent him to Shakespeare's Globe.

That place was one of a long list of things he'd still not got an adequate answer for how it came to be active.

Many of the other names he didn't recognise, but it was something to add to his big board of suspicious things.

-/

The next morning he awoke to a smell he'd mostly forgotten, the smell, or rather the smells of the various breakfast items of Hogwarts, it took him crashing back to his life at Hogwarts.

Both the good and the bad, it was, like much of his time he'd spent here over the past less than 24 hours strange, an experience he wasn't keen to experience again if he was totally honest with himself.

The past, this past, should lay in the past.

There was a note beside the table of food from Neville saying he'd risen early to check some experiments including ones pertaining to Harry's samples.

The food was as it smelled and the memories also, quite strong.

He was glad he hadn't gone to the Great Hall, the nostalgia it would have brought would have been quite odd, bad even.

In the end he'd chosen some fresh fruit, all of it out of season, something he'd never really considered before until he escaped Hogwarts and lived as a regular person, away from all of this. That seasons might have an impact on when food was available, though even that wasn't really true, one could go into any large chain of supermarkets and get food from different countries. Mostly though he bought his food in the local village closest to his house.

The fruit tasted as it did, bursting with flavour, with intensity and sweetness. In fact everything he'd eaten tasted as he remembered, or even more so.

"No who's being paranoid?" Harry mused to himself as he dropped the piece of bacon he'd grabbed from a plate.

It wasn't that anything was unnatural, he doubted that wizards had any knowledge of flavour enhancers, but perhaps it was just his life outlook had become more cynical, that food shouldn't elicit such a strong intense reaction of nostalgia like this. But it was more than that.

It was like the food was at pains to prove that it was better than the world beyond Hogwarts.

Whatever it was he didn't like it, and left breakfast with a strong desire for an egg and bacon butty with the slightly burnt bits and the slightly too milky tea that would accompany it.

He looked to the breakfast table and wondered if he should risk a glass of orange juice he decided against it and left the room with most of its food intact.

He found Neville in his office, where he mostly expected to find him.

Neville looked up, but his expression was not bright and chirpy as he'd been yesterday. It was troubled, sickened, worried, concerned. It was a somewhat duller expression that Harry had faced when he looked in the mirror after the raid. "Harry." Neville motioned for Harry to take a seat and moved over a tea tray pouring them each a mug of tea.

The tea, Harry was pleased to realise, was just that, tea, with imperfections around some of the flavours, it wasn't as perfect, as well made as the breakfast. It was something he wanted to bring it up with Neville.

It couldn't _just_ be the House Elves, or maybe it was just his memory cheating and then becoming suspicious about how accurate his memory was.

"By your expression I can only guess that you've found something." Harry said after a moment of enjoying a sip of tea.

"Yes Harry." Was all Neville said as he pulled out a folder that was unlike most wizards used. It was dirty and held various pieces of parchment within it. "Some of the samples defied analysis."

"Defied?"

Neville shook his head, an ambivalence of sickness and excitement playing over his features. "It was if one of the samples was ignoring, shrugging off my initial attempts to test it, to see what it could do, what it was capable of."

"That's…" Harry was at a loss for words.

"These samples weren't the first generation of _Krynoid." _Neville said, testing the word.

Harry nodded, he was relatively certain that the seeds had come from the one that was created at Hogwarts, it was the only place a seed pod could have come from.

Neville shook his head, seemingly anticipating what he'd been thinking. "It wasn't from Hogwarts Harry. Hogwarts has a unique…" He trailed off and then shook his head. "There's a reason plants cultivated here are prized, why they can stand up against students working with them, why the whomping willow is so violent and intelligent." He paused. "Hogwarts is unique Harry. And I can identify if a plant has been grown here or somewhere else, a lot of herbologists who've worked around magical plants will be able to tell something like that." Neville paused again. "But your samples didn't show strong evidence of having been planted or grown at Hogwarts."

"Strong?"

"They showed something, but." He stopped to breathe in. "I think they are several generations from the original Hogwarts plant." Neville looked at him. "How many were there? Harry, how long had they done this?"

Harry closed his eyes and made the mistake for doing it for a too long a moment as memories flashed in his mind of the raid on the facility, of the screams, of the maturation process going on before his eyes, the screams of terror, the _noise_ of transformation; man into plant. Wizard and witch transformed.

"Harry!" Neville's voice broke him out of his thoughts and memories.

"Sorry." Harry felt phlegm in his throat and swallowed. "Just caught in thought."

Neville watched him for a moment. "The amount of spells that the samples had been exposed to goes beyond my knowledge. There were spells to speed up maturation of a species, developmental spells, curses whose aim I believe is to curb intelligence and also breed in through spell work obedience and recognition."

Harry stopped Neville there. "There are spells to do that?"

"For certain plants of course Harry. The whomping willow and species related to it are used by certain families as protection for their estates, the spells are used on the trees as they grow to force recognition, that's easy enough but often makes them pliable as their natural structure is altered. With the obedience it makes them reliant on certain spells and particular mixes of fertilisers and nutrients. It's quite fascinating really." Neville said brightly, seemingly grateful to be speaking of something other than the 'samples'.

"There are other substances in the samples" Harry raised an inquiring eyebrow. "Processed substances from plants and other substances that look similar to spells used in medicine. There appears to be present elements of the Pepperup potion, but in far greater concentrations, likely toxic to a wizard, there's also some of the key ingredients of Skele-Gro." Neville paused as he flipped through his notes. "There was also a large presence of dittany."

Harry frowned he was sure he'd heard of that before. Neville caught his look. "You might know of it as essence of dittany Harry. It's a powerful restorative and-"

Harry interrupted him. "And toxic to a regular wizard in the amounts you detected." Neville's expression confirmed what he'd just said.

"All this would explain why they were so hard to kill." Harry mused aloud.

"In one of your samples I found that the structures were already breaking down from the magical toxicity present Harry."

Harry looked confused at Neville.

"These samples, the plants or the" He paused for a moment. "The people they were from, whatever spell, potion or whatever combination they were trying they hadn't found the right mix. This combination was killing them, they couldn't have survived some of these treatments."

"But they were developing…evolving." Harry said quietly.

Neville nodded. "The maturation cycle was being pushed it seems some of them developed very quickly. Harry some magical plants can do that, certain plants can develop quickly and can be persuaded to develop in different ways for different situations and locations." Neville went silent as both men paused in thought.

Neville broke the silence. "Harry, what was this for?"

Harry mused. "I only have some ideas Neville, from what I saw these are people with very little ethics."

"But you have some ideas?" Neville asked.

Harry nodded. "None that I am close to fully realising though, when I know exactly what I'm dealing with-"

"It'll be dealt with by you?" Neville interrupted.

"Yes, and my associates." Harry said as he took another swig of his tea. It was rather good.

"Better than from the House Elves." Neville said with a secretive grin. "I don't know why the tea from the kitchens comes tasting like it does."

"Intense." Harry mused.

Neville nodded as he collected his notes. "I'll give you all my original notes and your samples back."

"Thanks Neville, now what do I owe you?" Harry asked in a professional tone.

"Owe?" Neville looked confused.

"You did some work for the League of Paranormal Investigations, we're an organisation like any other, I'll pay you for your time and effort." Harry said. Neville laughed.

"Harry, what you brought is something most would never see, never have to look into."

"Maybe that's for the best. Compensation for that." Harry said in a neutral tone.

Neville shook his head. "No. We've seen things Harry, been through things." Neville paused. "How about a compromise?"

"Compromise?" Harry repeated suspiciously.

"Next holidays you have me round for a meal, with Daphne. Hannah and I, you and Daphne." Neville explained.

Harry stared wide eyed at Neville. "You're inviting yourself around to my house?" Neville smiled at the look on Harry's face. "Couldn't I just pay you?"

"That would be less interesting Harry." He smiled and looked semi-seriously at him. "You've got to socialise more Harry."

"And I do that through dinner parties?"

Neville shrugged. "That's how us pureblood do things."

"The last dinner party I went to I ended up nearly dying." Harry said and didn't mention it was in the past with Draco and Daphne.

"That says more about you I think Harry." Neville commented lightly.

Harry sighed. "Maybe you're right. It'll need to be in the new year."

"Yes, you said, meeting Daphne's parents."

"Yes." Harry murmured.

-/

It was a few weeks to Christmas and the roads into London were already starting the thicken with traffic. Harry glanced at the temperature gauge, but the engine and the car remained in optimum working condition. Despite the small amount of weapons fire the Jag took in Aidensfield, all patched up and as good as new.

In the passenger seat wasn't Daphne, she'd gone on ahead, to see her family, instead there was an overnight bag, everything packed in it without magic, to be crumbled and whatever through the gentle art of folding. The boot of the E-Type was filled with his other overnight bag of weapons, scanning technology and other things _just in case_.

Not that he expected anything to happen, on Christmas Day he intended to spend it at his house, relaxing, preparing for the years to come the years when everything would change.

Maybe spend it with Daphne, he didn't know.

Maybe he'd end up being so strange or something to her parents that he wouldn't see her.

She's only recently even revealed their names to him. 'I sometimes forget you don't know these things.' She'd said smiling at him. The smile had suggested to him that this was a good thing.

Osric and Agave. Which guaranteed he'd remember them, or possibly confuse them with other obscure names such as when he might have to address the leader of a Bandril space fleet or something.

As he mused he almost missed the turn off down a small side street. He did almost hit a cyclist who gave him a very interesting array of hand signals, how he managed stay stable whilst doing so was surprising.

The house in Kensington was large and detached from the others with an amount of grounds around it, not a huge amount, but the trees were tall enough that they wouldn't have anyone spying. The drive way was well kept, though un-used, the gates seems to have been opened in preparation for him and closed magically, quite literally in this case behind him.

Parking and gathering his bag he approached the door, and felt for just a moment like leaving, like this might be a mistake, or possibly a trap.

Instead he rang the bell, and patted a pocket where his wand lay, he hadn't brought any other weapons along with him, they remained in the car.

He didn't think it would be nice to arrive at his…his girlfriend's parent's house with a weapon strapped to his leg, in a shoulder harness, or elsewhere.

The door opened to reveal Daphne Greengrass, looking as calm and reserved, much like he _wasn't_ feeling.

"Harry." She said embracing him and raising an eyebrow at the bag that was at his feet.

"Daphne." Harry said. "No elves to answer the door?"

"We prefer to do it ourselves Mr Potter." Said a voice within the house.

Daphne raised and eyebrow and Harry grabbed his bag and walked into the grand-ish house.

Agave Greengrass watched as her husband and her daughter's new suitor conversed animatedly.

They had, as was her husband's profession been conversing about logistical transport of goods. Mr Potter was quite knowledgeable in the various muggle transport methods.

His conveyance was parked in the spot usually used by coaches and carriages, though they did not receive much of either at this residence.

Daphne had been quite excitable about Mr Potter's method of conveyance, it was reportedly quite an exhilarating method of travel.

"He is quite an animated man Harry Potter." She said to her daughter who was guiding a tray of after dinner refreshments and sweets. The tray had been delivered from the kitchens, it was one of her and her husband's quirks. They preferred the house elves to be unseen and not present in the meals and other times.

The house elves likewise were more reserved than some of their acquaintances' who might have them dressed up to serve meals and deliver messages around the home.

Agave and her husband Osric preferred to meet any guests face to face, to pass dishes by magic or hand at the dinner table. In their business that was how one performed business.

"Harry was worried he would not have anything to converse about upon meeting you and father." Daphne said as she floated the tray over to the table they were sitting around.

Agave made a small gesture that she knew her husband would recognise, it was extremely subtle to anyone else, but her husband knew it was a signal to return from his discussions and re-join the conversation with everyone.

Harry was surprised at Osric's passion for his business, but then from the little that Daphne had told him it was a large business, and when he'd mentioned the super-sonic speeds of the Concorde and the ideas he'd had for it he'd immediately pounced on the idea and had not quite dragged him away from the conversation with Daphne and Agave to beside the fire where they could speak in more detail.

"It seems my wife would like us to return to the conversation Harry." He said with a chuckle.

Osric was an amicable individual. Although, that said Harry hadn't really had a lot of experience with wizarding families to form a baseline to compare people to.

Harry followed Osric back to where Daphne and Agave were.

"Harry, Daphne has told us nothing of your League of Paranormal Investigations that you preside over." Agave began, they had throughout dinner not even spoken of what he did, indeed he'd done most of the talking in the form of questions about them, what they did etc. It had been very interesting, he'd said as much, meeting wizards who operated in the wizarding world, though outside of the Ministry.

Harry looked over to Daphne to try and gauge some sort of way to deal with this question. They hadn't really discussed what her parents thought of _aliens_ and whatever, Daphne hadn't even mentioned that her parents knew what LPI was or what he did.

"I've known about your League since you became acquainted with my daughter Harry." Agave said watching him. She had began the night, as Osric had by calling him Mr Potter but it seemed as the night wore on, or maybe because he was so chatty with Osric that they switched to calling him by his first name. He'd not been sure what to call them, Lord and Lady or Mr and Mrs and just gone with their first name because that was all Daphne had given him to work with.

Daphne was busying herself with studying which of the offered drinks on the large tray to drink. There appeared to be an array of tea pots offering several different types of tea. He wondered in the brief seconds he had between answering and awkward silence if he could do the same, but as he was the one who was being addressed he doubted it very much.

Awkward situations could be saved by alien invasions, even if that was the word he was considering avoiding.

"The League of Paranormal Investigations deals with the things the Ministry likes to think doesn't exist, but does and as time continues on will become all the more apparent and need to be dealt with and not covered up."

Agave raised an eyebrow at his stream of information. Harry leaned back into the chair he was sitting in. They were all sitting in individual chairs, Victorian something chairs. Furniture wasn't really his strong point, beyond the era they were from and them being chairs he wasn't really sure.

"What precisely does that entail Harry?" Agave asked.

Harry smiled at her. "Surely someone around the Ministry would have enlightened you as to what the League gets up to?" He asked. Daphne looked at him, curious and not angry, just curious in how he was taking the conversation.

Agave chuckled.

Harry smiled. There were only a handful of places that she could have found out about the League from, while in recent times he'd needed to throw around the name a little bit more to get what he needed to done, it wasn't as though he was part of the Ministry or something like that.

"We deal with the unexplained, the things that lay outside of the magical world, that wizards and witches think can be covered up or explained by magic."

"But is not." Daphne added calmly.

"They are the things that lay beyond the Earth. We also deal with those that lay sideways in existence and meta-temporal phenomena."

"You speak of aliens Harry." Agave said calmly.

"Sometimes I even speak to aliens, get shot at by them and shoot at them. Depending on the situation." He replied casually with a smile.

"Depending on the situation." She repeated. "Fascinating Harry, you are one of the more interesting individuals that Daphne has had in her life." Agave said.

Harry looked over to Daphne who still had a somewhat neutral expression on her face. Impossible to read seemed the order of the day with everyone in this house.

Very much different to the other wizarding family that he'd spent an extended period of time with. Now the only Wealsey he felt he could comfortably spent time with is George, and maybe Ron.

The conversation then switched to the relatively normal questions of tea and what to accompany it with.

Later in the evening Harry found himself on the landing with Daphne.

"So, do we have separate or a shared bedroom?" He asked wrapping his hands around her body.

"Separate, but linked bedrooms Harry." She said as she mirrored his movement and wrapping her arms around him. "You found my parents agreeable?"

Harry inclined his head and kissed her. "Fine, though I would have liked a bit of forewarning, I didn't know…" He exhaled looking into Daphne's eyes that were alight with mischief.

"You like to think on your feet Harry." She said meeting his gaze.

"I like to be prepared, thinking on my feet makes me blurt out things."

"It makes you confident to face concerns." She replied.

"Perhaps. Bed?" Harry asked with a smile.

Daphne just met his smile with a greater one.

-/

Christmas Day was something he awoke to slowly, there were no panicked, or even calm calls to his phone. It was in fact quiet, albeit for the birds and a quietly departing time space machine.

Harry only realised the last part as he was getting changed and ran out into the courtyard outside his house.

Outside he couldn't believe what he saw.

On it was a note.

_Harry,_

_Just a flying visit, the old girl doesn't seem to like visiting the early 21st century. _

_This old thing was taking up UNIT's storage space, no need for it now I've resigned! Or rather I will once the Brigadier stops pestering me._

_Your friend, _

_The Doctor. _

It was signed with a series of symbols and then a wax seal beside it. It appeared to be the Seal of Rassilon, though the wax had smudged it quite a bit.

Taking a step back he looked at the machine before him. Bessie it wasn't.

He'd heard the Doctor talk of building a car for himself, something that would surpass Bessie's capabilities and surpass even UNIT's vehicular capabilities.

It looked like something out of this world, alien almost.

The two huge fins at the back, the fact he couldn't see any wheels holding it up.

Plus it appeared to be registered! Albeit for the 1970s, or it could be the 80s the tax disc was a bit hard to see.

Returning inside to fully change he returned to find the machine, the vehicle still there.

"So it wasn't a dream." Harry said as he walked around the vehicle.

Harry wished the Doctor were here, if only to explain how to get into the thing. He finally worked out that the whole windscreen tipped forward.

Inside was comfortable, with several controls, there was also a little school exercise book that contained the Doctor's hand writing.

Flipping through one word leapt out at him 'Flight'.

"No." Harry said with a grin and grabbed the handle to pull the windscreen closed. "This can't…" He trailed off as he found the keys and started it, an unearthly sound came around the vehicle.

-/

_A/N:_

_This chapter is longer than I thought it was going to be and covers a few more things than I planned it was going to. _

_This brings 2005 to a close, next chapter will cover the re-meeting of Ian and Barbra with Daphne, Draco and Harry and of course 2006 when events like **Aliens of London/World War III** start happening (finally)._

_Various problems got in the way of me finishing this chapter (computer crashes, illness and other things). But it's given me a chance to pause and check over a few things that I'd written for this story. _

_One character who's mentioned here as Andrew Fuller was called Andrew Kendall in the first chapter he appeared in (the Shakespeare's Globe chapter). He was called Andrew Fuller and then I changed it to Kendall. But then in later chapters I referred to him as Fuller as that's the name I had in my imagination. As it's easier to edit the chapters than my imagination those have been edited to conform. Sorry for any confusion._

_The stuff about the Concorde is something I've put into this chapter for the future, there **may** be a spin-off story in a few chapters' time. I'm still somewhat undecided._

_Yes, that is the 'Whomobile' that Harry is given, and it's the Fourth Doctor who leaves him the message. Time placement for the Doctor it's between **The Deadly Assassin **and **The Face of Evil**._


	40. Chapter 40

**Chapter 40**

They'd all apparated to the house, or rather the road outside the house. The last time he'd driven to their house was 30 plus years ago, and anyway himself, Draco and Daphne had spent more time apparating around when they were back in the 70s than driving.

They'd departed from Harry's house, for no other reason than timing wise it was best to leave together and they all knew where that was.

They all probably knew where Malfoy Manor was as well. But Harry didn't have any issue with Malfoy returning to his house, or the road outside his house.

Daphne had a tall box in her hand, wrapped in a delicately decorated wrapping paper tied with simple string that she held onto.

Malfoy. Harry corrected himself mentally _Draco_ held a thin oblong shape in one hand, it too was wrapped, in what appeared to be green velvet.

Harry on the other hand had two bulky bags slung over his back. They were, he had discovered like his not-magical but still bigger within that without bag.

He'd found them in the boot of the car the Doctor had given him for Christmas.

Inside the bags he'd discovered a great many things, including a cloak that matched Barbra's description of a Thal cloak and an outfit that matched Ian's description of the one he wore while adventuring with Marco Polo.

Upon discovery of these things he stopped going through the bags and repackaged them as he'd found them.

The house had weathered time well.

There were a few more plants around the house and the trees had grown in the intervening 30 plus years.

"It is strange returning here again." Daphne mused.

"A peculiarity of experience that I hope I do not have to experience again Potter." Draco looked at Harry.

"It wasn't all fun and games for me Draco, I've very much been there and done that. Twice." Harry said as they walked slowly towards the front door.

"Even though you have friends in that time Harry?" Daphne asked gently. They didn't really speak of their time in the past in great detail.

"Even so." Harry mused. "Knowing they were to die, would be dead now." Harry shook his head. "I thought about mentioning I'd been where we were to Neville."

"Longbottom?" Draco asked curiously. "Why?"

"Chatting with him. But I realised that you two are the only ones I can really speak of about our time there." Harry said with a touch of amusement in his voice.

"It amuses you Potter that we share a bond?" Malfoy asked, though Harry couldn't really discern his tone.

Harry shrugged. "I never thought I'd be shooting to kill Ginny, it's funny how things turn out isn't it?" Harry said with a bit of a smile.

"The mad cow." Draco said with a snort of amusement.

Daphne just remained silently amused, Harry could tell she was, just by the flickering of amusement at the edges of her lips.

As they reached the door Harry looked between the two others, neither stepped forward to ring the bell.

"It seems I'll do it." Harry said to no one but himself and rang the door bell.

They could hear footsteps padding to the door and as it opened, though before he could see who was within chills ran down his back. It was the same sensation he got when he'd called on Sarah Jane Smith for the first time and to a much greater degree seeing the Brigadier again after practically the same time gap between then and now after he'd returned the first time.

Plus there was the knowledge that he had watched over Harry when he'd been young; that the Brigadier had gone looking for him, yet knowing he couldn't interfere.

"Harry?" The door had opened to reveal Ian Chesterton. "Daphne? Draco?"

"Hello Ian." Harry said with a broad smile. "You're looking remarkably well."

"We thought, to return and visit after…" Daphne trailed off.

"Barbra, we've got visitors!" Ian shouted into the house as he ushered the trio inside.

As they came in Harry marvelled at how everything was the same and yet different, it was one thing knowing people like the Brigadier between times, it was another having met Ian and Barbra once in childhood, then again and then being in the same house twice in different time periods it was…a little odd.

Then Ian grabbed his hand shaking it and bringing him into a hug. "It is very good to see you, all of you." He did the same to Daphne and a surprised Draco. "After such a long time.

"Time has been kind to you." Daphne observed. "To both of you." She said as a surprised Barbra came in.

Draco straightened himself after Ian had embraced him in such a friendly manner. He had never been welcomed in such a way, certainly not by a muggle in such an embrace it was…curious. Though not surprising given that they had known the couple with a 30 year period of no contact for them. Maybe himself, Daphne and Potter were to them like that Doctor they travelled with, a brief contact with something unbelievable.

Something else, that Daphne had just noted as Barbara came into the room. Time had indeed been kind to them. They had it seemed barely aged since they had met them. It was almost wizarding-like in the way age had approached them, with delicate kindness the ages had passed their touch on them.

The marks of wisdom, rather than age were present for those who knew where to look, a some touches of grey in their hair, some additional wrinkles. But by far they were not as old as he had expected them to be. He had visited upon many witches and wizards who had aged far more inappropriately than this pair had.

It was quite fascinating.

"So how long have you all been back in your" Ian paused and looked to Barbra.

They had moved from the kitchen to living room where again they had all sat on several nights together.

"Your own time?" Barbra finished.

"A month or so." Daphne answered and looked to Harry as Ian and Barbra seemed slightly surprised.

"I had several things to take care of, the location that sent us to the past in the first place required some dealing with, my organisation-" Harry was cut off by Ian.

"The League of Paranormal Investigations." Ian said with a knowing smile.

Harry rolled his eyes and sighed. "Secret organisation is obviously meant in the same way that UNIT is a secret organisation." Harry shook his head.

"Merely a curious investigation Harry, I had to do something while waiting for you to show up again. You're easier to find than the Doctor."

"You can find him if you know where to look." Daphne added mysteriously. Harry just nodded.

"There were some other more disturbing factors that left Potter occupied." Draco added looking to Harry.

Harry just nodded in reply. "Yes. That did take some precedence I'm afraid."

"World changing danger I expect?" Barbara asked. "Always was with the Doctor."

"Something similar." Harry replied not wishing to get into detail. He had managed to compartmentalise those memories into little boxes in his mind so he didn't need to consider the memories of what happened at the facility with those things and what happened.

There was a short period of silence before Daphne stepped out of her seat and presented Barbara with the box she had beside her.

"This is just something, an appreciation of your offering us your home when we were here." Daphne said.

"You didn't have to Daphne." Barbra said in a surprised tone.

"Anything to help Harry, and his friends, we would do to help." Ian added.

Barbra had removed the paper and inside a box that seemed to fall away as the paper was removed was a crystal vase.

"It's wonderful!" Barbra said.

"It's magical." Daphne said. Barbra looked to her and Draco and Harry in surprise.

"It will fill with water and exchange it. I had noticed that you like freshly cut things in the kitchen when we were last here." Daphne said by way of explanation.

"Thank you, this is…wonderful."

Draco moved forward. "This is something for both of you." Though he handed it to Ian who pulled away the velvet. There was a box inside and within it what appeared to be an 8 inch piece of woven rope.

"It's very intricate." Ian said, though there was a trace of puzzlement in his voice as he looked between Draco and Harry.

Harry shrugged. Draco hadn't explained what he had in the box.

"You offered us sanctuary, this is something I wish to return. Potter-" Draco paused as Ian looked up. "_Harry_ " He looked in Harry's direction. "Has indicated that the times ahead will not be the safest for this _planet_. Should you require sanctuary of your own in times of dire need, you both simply grasp it and say 'sanctuary' together and you will be transported to a secure location." Draco looked to Harry. "That not even _aliens_ may find." Draco paused. "It will return you here in the same manner." Malfoy finished.

"That is quite an offer Draco." It was Daphne who spoke and her tone spoke volumes to Harry. It was seemingly quite an offer. Quite an offer especially for Draco.

"This is quite an offer Draco. Thank you." Ian said looking into Draco's eyes.

"Is there really a danger in the future? We survived the dinosaur invasion, not that we were in London at the time, but Johnny was."

"Your son?" Daphne asked.

"Quite the musician." Harry said.

"Did you know Harry, when you came and visited?" Barbra suddenly asked.

Harry smiled mysteriously. "I knew of his work." Harry took a breath. "But I couldn't speak of what would happen in your personal timeline, to your family. Just as I couldn't to people I knew then. The web of time is a tricky thing and I don't yet understand it all. But what I do informs me not to interfere with things with history and native to that time zone." Harry finished as the occupants of the room looked at him.

"Sometimes you're uncannily like the Doctor." Ian chuckled. "Except he seemed to blunder in whenever he wanted."

"He got better at it, with age and wisdom." Harry said and picked up the two bags handing one to Barbra and one to Ian. "Thinking of. These were left in something the Doctor gave me. I think he intended me to pass them on to you."

"What are they Harry?" Barbra looked at the bag curiously.

"Well, they're sort of like the TARDIS," Both Ian and Barbra looked up and dropped the bags suddenly. "Bigger on the inside." Harry explained.

Ian and Barbra seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief. "They also seem to contain everything from your travels. Though I didn't look through everything."

"Our travels?" Ian and Barbra said together.

"I assume. I never got to mention it to the Doctor, or maybe I will in the future." Harry shook his head. "But they it appears so. I found things from Skaro and your travels with Polo. I assume the Doctor grabbed everything from your travels."

Barbra was already rummaging around in the bag. "Oh Ian, look!" She pulled out the Thal cloak. "Do you remember this?" She brought it to her face. "It still smells like the petrified forest."

"I remember." Ian said and paused a look of worry on his face for a moment. "It was also _very_ radioactive." He looked to Harry.

Harry shook his head. "I checked and shoved several scanners into both to check; no radiation readings and nothing that's dangerous. It very likely sat in the TARDIS for several years. Its interior sits in a state of grace in any case." Harry paused. "So the Doctor says."

"And how is the old boy? You were quite reticent about him last time."

"He's…" Harry started and then trailed off. "He has many guises, sometimes he's mysterious, sometimes he's excitable, and then other times he's changed." Harry continued vaguely. He knew the Doctor that would soon visit this time period would be the latter.

"That was always him, never constant, except grouchy." Barbara added with the smile as she looked at the open bag filled with memories of their travels.

Much later the trio departed the house, Harry assured them he'd call or drop by on occasion.

"You were somewhat hesitant Harry." Daphne began as they walked away from the house.

"Yes Potter, not your usual chatty self." Malfoy commented.

Harry exhaled. "It just somewhat hard, they haven't lived a life since the Doctor in connection with aliens like-" Harry stopped himself as he remembered who he was with. "Some others who I'm in contact with."

"Please Potter I care not for what muggles you associate with." Malfoy said as they reached the edge of the property.

"Well I guess we say goodbye Malfoy until the next emergency." Harry said holding out a hand to _Draco_. "Draco."

"Potter." Draco said without much malice and shook his hand. Then he let go and disappeared.

"That is quite forward of you Harry." Daphne said as they looked around them.

"It is?" Harry mused. "Calling him Draco or shaking his hand?"

"It is maturing in you, I would hope that there are no further wizards and witches that are in both Draco and my circles that you will need to dispose of." Daphne commented as they made to apparate.

Returning to his house Harry heard a tone coming from his office. It was one of the many warning noises that the space monitoring network he had constructed used.

Sitting down at the computer he beamed at the screen, it heralded something he'd been expecting. The arrival into the North Sea of something, something distinctly not human.

"Harry?" Daphne called, she was lingering near the study door, but as part of their unspoken policy of keeping their lives separate or the secretive bits of pieces of it at any rate separate, had not followed him in.

"Nothing to worry about." He said tapping a code into the keyboard silencing the warning tone.

"Those sorts of noises are things _to_ be concerned of Harry. Muggle machines, _computers_ do not make noises like that when something is right."

Harry tapped something into the computer and the screen went dark again. "Maybe it's because I built it, and wanted a sense of danger in my life." Harry replied. Daphne glared at him.

"That I might expect of you." Daphne took a seat on the chair beside his desk in front of the bookshelves. "But you prefer **real** danger Harry, not something you falsify."

Harry grinned. "You are beginning to know me too well Daphne."

Daphne smiled and motioned for him to go on. "I think this is when everything changes."

"Oh?" Daphne looked at her beaming boyfriend curiously.

It was early March, Harry had indicated he'd detected 'significant activity' and his vehicle that the Doctor had given him, the one that was so very strangely designed, yet could fly through unknown means. The one that was sitting behind them, had indicated 'temporal activity', so Harry had said.

They were standing on this roof top because, as she could see utilising a modified set of omnioculars she's brought with her she could see a Police Box sitting within a muggle housing facility, a set of tall buildings located within London.

From where they were they could also see the Palace of Westminster, the Clock Tower in particular Harry had indicated would be changed on this day. But had not indicated further what might happen.

"What is it that we are waiting for Harry?" She asked. The police box had not moved, except that since they had been here a hoodlum of some description had painted 'BAD WOLF' on the side. Which indicated to her that outside influences could affect the box; the TARDIS's exterior. Though Harry had indicated, as had Barbara and Ian that the TARDIS was indestructible. But seemed that its internal elements could effect how this interaction between outside and inside altered the interactions it had with the world.

"Something interesting." He said as he pulled out a small computational device he had inside a pocket.

Then she heard it, a long droning noise from far away. Gazing around she saw it.

It was unlike any muggle craft, not an aeroplane, not a helicopter like the ones Harry had a fascination for. Nor was it like the craft Harry and her father were working venturing forward on. This was something…

Its shape almost rebelled in her estimation of what it was.

The shapes these she could recognise. But its existence, how it behaved in the air, there was something.

"Alien." She breathed, Harry grinned at her as she realised she said it out loud.

"This is where they grab the attention of everyone, supposedly." Harry said. The Doctor had recounted this event in some detail to him, it seemed fresh in his mind when he'd met him at the Quidditch World Cup. Looking back it was likely he was avoiding other topics. Like the Time War.

Daphne was unsure of what Harry meant by this, he had been quite reticent to discuss his foreknowledge of events that were to take place shortly. Although she knew that any foreknowledge must be managed, and the Doctor could not be someone who would use this information irresponsibly.

She only briefly had time to consider what would draw attention, as the alien crafted adjusted its course. It was quite clearly not out of control as it had managed a few banking turns until it was level with clock tower of the Palace of Westminster.

"Harry, it can't." She said as she watched the craft approach.

"Grand gestures and great destruction will always grab people's attention." Harry mused though he was cringing slightly as the craft approached, seemingly at a very slow rate as it completed another small correction.

"It's deliberate." Daphne breathed out in sudden realisation.

Beside her Harry nodded. "It's also not from space and very deliberate." Harry said as he removed from his pocket a pair of binoculars. They were not of the wizarding variety, but nor did they look like they were of a regular muggle production.

Like many of the items that Harry used in the pursuit of his work they were of an origin that she could not quite discern.

"Splash down." Harry said as he replaced the device within his pocket. "Time for us to go." Harry said.

Daphne turned her binoculars back to where she was monitoring the Doctor's craft; his TARDIS.

"You are not going to make contact with the Doctor or these aliens?" She asked as she followed Harry back towards his own craft where he was opening the 'windscreen' that allowed entry to it.

He shook his head and got into the craft as she joined him he began the starting procedures.

"My life with the Doctor is complicated enough and this aspect of him is…" He trailed off. "Affected by his experiences." He said finally as the craft lifted off the rooftop with almost no noise.

"Experiences?" She asked. Harry had never gone into vast amounts of detail about his association with the Doctor, as a friend who had been with him throughout childhood and far beyond it was perhaps one of the longest friendships Harry had.

"When I met him he was quit saddened by events in his recent past." Harry said in a faltering way. "Something close to him happened." He chanced a glance to her away from the view outside and the instruments, his expression was awkward and almost pained.

"You don't-"

"It's just complicated without context. He seemed to indicate this event, here was close to the traumatic events of the past. If I meet him here…" Harry trailed off. "When I met him in the 70s it was early in his life, I think and I knew him quite well, his future and I'd known him." Harry paused as the craft manoeuvred in the air. "I'm not sure if meeting him now would be a good thing. Perhaps later when he's more reconnected with humanity a bit." Harry said finally.

Daphne had only begun to understand the true complexity that was the Doctor and his various aspects, but this man, this _alien_ who Harry cared for, how someone so powerful that could walk the winds of time, what damage could be inflicted on such a being?

Then a noise interrupted her thoughts. It was a familiar noise to Harry's home, the noise of the phone.

"It's the Ministry, on my special phone." Harry explained as he pushed a button, a rustling of noise played throughout the cabin. "Yes?" Harry said.

"_Uh…I was told to use this number there's been a crash."_ Harry's expression portrayed confusion and for a moment Daphne couldn't identify the voice, she had heard it before but couldn't for the moment place it.

"Hermione?"

"_Harry?!"_

Daphne knew that Hermione Granger was working with the Ministry whilst completing her final portions of her muggle study. It was something that involved Aurors as well. Though she hadn't found anyone who knew anything more. Draco or one of his contacts probably knew something of what was going on within the various departments of the Ministry. But it wasn't something of great concern. Harry was in somewhat regular contact with Hermione Granger and he'd shown no reticence with introducing her, or rather reintroducing her. She had had some contact with Hermione Granger when they were at Hogwarts. Unlike many of her classmates Daphne had still regularly used the Hogwarts library for additional study. There were several unique texts within its shelves, often that were not within the Restricted Section.

Although now there were far more libraries that she could access, were it needed. Though most texts that were relevant to her family's business were held within her family's estate.

"You've called the League of Paranormal Investigations, and if you're using that phone it's important. What do you want and why are you calling?" Harry said as he looked to another of the craft's screens. Daphne had already discerned this one's function as a map so Harry could pilot the craft back to his home.

"_I…uh…there's a spaceship that's crashed into Big Ben._" For an archaeologist Ms Granger had made something of an error in her reference to the building, although she did hear the bell ring out as the craft crashed into it.

"You know that it actually hit the Clock Tower, and dropped a few bits of debris along the way."

"_You know, you were there."_ Granger paused. "_You knew Harry! You knew this was going to happen._"

Daphne's estimation of Hermione Granger increased somewhat.

"Hermione. What do you want? You've obviously not just come across the phone sitting on a shelf that says 'for use in emergencies' and if you have I'll be having words with people in the Ministry."

Daphne heard Granger audibly sigh and could imagine the woman staring at Harry because of his method of distracting her from her actual goal.

"_I was here for a briefing Harry, I'm heading out in an hour to help stabilise the **Clock Tower **of the Houses of Parliament. Happy?"_

Harry grinned to himself. "Very. Again I'll repeat, what do you want?"

"_I didn't know I was calling you or I just would have gone outside and called you with a normal phone, this thing's not exactly compact."_

"Shall we discuss exactly what went into making a satellite communication device that I could leave with the people at the Ministry that was unbreakable and unmagicable for a later date?"

Granger sighed again. "_Fine Harry. The Ministry is throwing up anti-apparition wards around the site and other areas of London. They want you, and I suppose your organisation there as well. All I was told to say is 'there's an incident in London that requires your knowledge and experience' by some lackey in the Ministry who was dealing with a bunch of paper planes."_

"Fine, tell-" Harry shook his head. "Don't bother trying to find anyone, if they ask just say you go through to the answering service."

"_You mean you don't come when called Harry?"_ Granger had a sarcastic tone in her voice. "_How very like your attitude to the Ministry_."

"When something intrigues me I will arrive on time." Harry replied. "Look after yourself Hermione."

"_And you Harry_." Then the call ended.

"Thanks for staying quiet through all that." He said as they made the final approach towards his house.

"I understand you have concerns to take care of Harry." She touched his arm gently. "But I thank you for allowing me to witness the event. I understand it is one of many."

"Before the day is out." He murmured to himself. Then nodded more noticeably. "Yes. This year will prove to be interesting I think."

"Shit storm is the word." Judith said as Ioan she waved a pass through the side rear window of the Land Rover. "You're still messing with your wand secretively." She called forward to Ioan.

"Trying to determine how many spells the Ministry has thrown or tried to throw over this shit storm."

"One that I didn't think we'd get called into since Harry knows the ending." She said in an accusing tone.

"I know bits, it's like reading a powerpoint presentation." Judith groaned as Harry answered.

"More than once I've wanted to kill someone after one of those." She muttered.

"A well written one." Harry clarified. "I think we're here." Here seemed to be the command centre set up near the river to deal with the space ship.

"You think?" Judith asked.

The government was trying its hardest, Harry had to give them that, but how do you cordon off a huge section of the River Thames?

"Do you think there's Ministry goons around here?" Harry asked Ioan looking around.

"Would we have been called in if they were going to do that?" Judith asked and both Harry and Ioan gave her similar looks. "Of course we would."

"I think it's very possible." Ioan said remembering. "There was a Quidditch World Cup in the 60s when Britain hosted the cup, they hadn't anticipated the crowd or the celebrations and a lot of people witnessed things."

"Your phallus riding antics." Judith commented casually.

"The Ministry took the opportunity to push their alien-magic cover up, I remember when I was doing my research they went back to the surrounding areas and continued to stage 'alien events' with magic. Just to further the ideas that that they'd magicked away the spectacle. It was widely reported."

"I recall reading something about that." Harry was going to say more when a man, who looked like he was in charge strode over to him. Harry sighed and held up his security pass.

"Maybe it's the London Eye, maybe that's what's attracting all this alien stuff." Judith said as she and Ioan had their passes inspected.

"Thank you Sir." The military man, whose own ID indicated he was part of the Parachute Regiment said.

"Has a perimeter been established?"

"Yes sir and divers are preparing to approach the craft." He paused for a few moments. "We were waiting for UNIT to give the all clear."

Harry looked to Ioan and Judith. "Unpack the portable detectors." He said and turned his full attention back to the soldier. "I can give you danger assessment, but I'll need to talk with your commander."

"Yes sir. I'll just check." He said, not quite coming to attention as he left them.

Judith appraised him when Harry turned back to them. Harry shrugged. "Military minds are much easier to manipulate, rigid thinking."

"Nothing to do with you wanting to show off your domineering side to us?" Judith asked.

"None at all." Harry paused. "Judith, do a perimeter sweep and then go for a wander."

Judith nodded. "Looking for anything special?"

"Anyone from Torchwood. They would have to be all over this, Torchwood One's somewhere around here."

"I thought you were best friends with Torchwood." She teased. Harry's expression hardened.

"In Cardiff with Jack yes. But Torchwood One's an entirely different beast."

"All the power at the top." Judith looked to him. "If I find anyone?"

"I'll leave that to you." Harry paused. "Make sure they leave, this situation's already complicated enough, Ioan and I will handle any wizards wanting to take advantage."

"If I see any I'll deal with them." She paused and smiled at him and held up her hand. "No witnesses."

"Sir, Brigadier James Sterling." The solider said as he walked up with an older man; solidly built and looked over both Harry and Ioan. Harry noted that the man instantly knew what weapons himself and Ioan had with them.

"Harry Potter, LPI."

"League of Paranormal Investigations, was expecting UNIT to turn up and shove their hands all over this mess." He focused Harry with a hard look. "Or other people."

"It's the other people I'm worried about Brigadier." Harry said and had a moment of déjà vu as he spoke and smiled.

"Something the matter Harry?" Ioan asked curiously.

Harry shook his head. "My associates will check the area around here, there are very likely several parties already nosing around."

"Clearance?" Brigadier Stirling asked.

Harry shrugged. "None or higher than yours, or they like to think it is. I can go with your boarding parties to the craft, make sure it's secure."

"Good. Sergeant." Brigadier Stirling barked an order and Harry picked up his case.

As they walked down towards the river Harry spoke again with Brigadier Stirling. "Once I've checked it's safe and there are no occupants I want this sent to Porton Down."

Brigadier Stirling looked at him. "I've had orders to leave it in the River."

Harry grimaced. "I bet you have." Harry mused. "Torchwood?"

"An organisation I shouldn't know exists." He gave him a careful look. "Though outside of your organisation's acronym I shouldn't know what you do either Mr Potter."

Harry smiled carefully. "Well, who do you trust Brigadier? A man who's standing in front of you offering to go with your men to a potentially dangerous alien craft who's instructing you to get that craft out of the water to an MOD site." Harry paused. "Or a faceless nameless person from an organisation which doesn't even have business cards." With the last statement Brigadier Stirling chuckled.

"And you do have business cards Mr Potter?"

"I've also got an address." Harry added as the boat made it down to the river. There were two boats one with divers and one with soldiers in it. "Potter here will be your specialist for this." Brigadier Stirling began. "UNIT has decided not to turn up, again." This made the soldiers before him smirk. "Mr Potter." Stirling looked to him.

"When we approach I'll check for any energy leaks, radiation surges and any energy fields that we need to worry about. Divers" Harry paused and look to the second boat. "Check for any hull breaches, don't go into the craft that way, there could be a lot of danger." Harry said vaguely looking over at the craft. "Once you've checked for hull breaches or any damage we'll proceed inside." Harry turned to Brigadier Stirling. "Be prepared to send another boat for any survivors." Harry paused. "Or any bodies."

"Any special equipment?" Stirling asked. "Outside the usual."

Harry shrugged. "A snow shovel, or something like it." Harry said with a grimace of memory.

Stirling looked at him. "Snow shovel?"

"If it came down without any inertia limiting systems the inhabitants may have been turned into something similar to rough custard." Stirling stared at him for a moment before nodding.

None of the soldiers asked any questions when he told them to stop a few meters from the craft as he opened the two plastic cases that held the equipment he'd slowly been trying to shrink down from the land rover boot sized equipment.

There was a limit to what could be done, especially with the need to have everything survive a magical rich environment.

As he set the scanner to power up he extracted his wand and carefully checked around them. It didn't look like the Ministry had got this far out into the middle of the river yet.

It was fortunate, though probably deliberate that the craft was where it was, almost in the middle of the river.

"Scans are clear, we're safe enough to go forward." Harry said to the Major who was leading this element of soldiers.

Ioan watched as Harry went out to the craft and continued the calculation that he had begun in his head a few moments ago. When he'd started to learn the intricacies of Quidditch, part of his cut short career by the bigots of wizarding society there had been an emphasis on various flight styles and calculations. How long with would take a broom to stop, when, what was the best angle to approach a snitch.

That craft, which was in the river, at the speed and angle that it hit the clock tower, had it not hit it, the velocity that it had been travelling at, in order to do the damage that it had done would have meant that the Thames wouldn't have provided enough cushioning to drop its velocity down.

Instead it would have continued along the river and crashed into the bank of the river, before floating back into the middle. Which meant the ship, or the ship's pilot either deliberately hit the tower to slow down or…or all of this was to get people to look at the river.

Harry had told them that 10 Downing Street would be destroyed today, that it was good that most of the cabinet was outside London at the moment. And that a ship would crash into the Thames. Though this was the extent of his knowledge, broadly he'd said.

Stabilising the clock tower was at least a good use of the Ministry's efforts. Putting up random notice me not charms everywhere wasn't, Ioan wasn't sure why they were bothering, but he was still finding them, and a variety of strengths.

Some were Quidditch ground strengths and others weren't anything beyond Hogwarts graduate levels.

Ioan suspected there was a department of the Ministry somewhere that was already drafting a story to explain this as another example of the Ministry and of Magic's power he thought with a sneer.

Then he noticed something, something incredibly stupid.

A solider looking into the barrel of a pistol; his own pistol. This wasn't exactly a wizarding taking advantage, though Ioan did wonder where the solider was, the one from whom this wizard had taken his clothes or at the very least weapon.

Looking around Ioan spied two soldiers. "You men, with me." He said in his most authoritative voice.

"Sir?" They looked to him as he showed his pass. Something about it made them give him their full attention.

"That man." Ioan gestured discreetly at the man who was still looking at the pistol. "Is an imposter." Ioan realised before he'd finished talking that the soldiers had recognised this and were already moving.

Ioan followed and arrived moments behind them, one already had the man in a firm hold.

Ioan walked up and the man's expression shifted slightly as he took in Ioan and more to the point the wand in his pocket.

Ioan meanwhile patted down the man, finding a similar wooden object within his uniform.

"Sir?"

Ioan realised the men were addressing him. "Keep him around here, and restrained." Ioan said placing the man's wand in a secure pocket of his own clothing. The solider took out some very thick plastic ties and bound the man's hands.

"I was under the impression everyone was stabilising the clock tower." He said in a low voice. "And any wizarding around could wait until after this situation has passed."

An expression passed over the man's face that Ioan recognised almost immediately. "There are anti-appariation wards around here." He said hoping he didn't have to explain what would happen if the man tried. If the man was a man, it was clear he'd taken the polyjuice potion.

"I see you've captured yourself a spy." Judith said, she'd used her uncanny ability to sneak up on him. "The soldiers pointed me in your direction."

Ioan was certain that wasn't the case, usually it was Harry she surprised like this.

"Harry's off doing what he enjoys." Judith continued.

"Throwing himself into imminent danger." Ioan muttered.

"Do you want me to deal with him?" She asked curiously.

"I think someone will notice if we kill him." Ioan said casually, the man stared at them with wild panicked eyes.

"Everyone's already distracted Ioan, I think they won't notice much." Judith said equally as casually.

"Or we could just interrogate him, if it is a him." Ioan said as he voiced his own internal musings.

Judith looked at him with a smile. "Kinky, you phallus waving fanatics continue to surprise me." Judith walked over and looked at the wizard, or witch. Ioan watched on for a moment, just in case Judith did get a little too enthusiastic with the man or woman.

"We're going to have a nice chat." She said calmly.

"And if…if I don't…?" He asked looking at the older woman.

"Well I won't do anything, I'll just…" Ioan didn't hear any more as Judith leaned down and whispered something into the polyjuice façade of the man's ear.

The man's body language, or rather the polyjuiced man's entire body seemed to tense and slump as his mind worked through what Judith had sad.

A few moments later she stepped away and the man seemed not broken but certainly worried.

"What…" Ioan started and Judith raised an eyebrow to him. "Never mind." Ioan continued after a moment.

-/

The divers had reported, the hull appeared to be intact.

"Sir?" One of the soldiers was handing him a torch, the man leading the squad was also looking to him. They were what looked like a hatch. "I'm leading the way it seems."

"No, but if you could open the door sir." Said the man who was leading the troops.

"Not UNIT." Harry remembered as he grabbed his energy scanner, slipping it into his bag which couldn't possibly hold it if it were a normal bag, and then pulled himself up onto the craft. Another of the soldiers joined him up on the edge.

Opening the hatch was simple, painfully simple.

"Far, far too simple." Harry said out loud as the hatch ground its way open.

"Sir?"

"Be careful. I think this is a trap." Harry said as he looked around out to the banks of the river. Though there was danger here there was also danger on the river banks, and probably in the clock tower.

There was also a Time Lord wandering around with a Northern accent. Which was also dangerous in his own way.

There was also Rose Tyler that he needed to not meet, as she seemed to genuinely not know who he was when they'd first met.

He followed the soldiers into the craft after half of them had entered, Harry was still mindful that there could be all sorts of danger lurking, in addition to this being a trap, he wasn't sure exactly what sort of trap this was going to end up being.

The only other things he was certain of for the outcome of all of this was that Downing Street would be destroyed and that someone called Harriet Jones was important.

The corridors inside the ship were large and the ceilings also high. Harry smirked to himself as he reflected he'd now seen inside enough spaceships to actually make observations like that and compare it to a wealth of experience.

Then they found the pilot.

Well, they, the soldiers did.

It wasn't what he was expecting, Harry had to admit.

As Harry arrived back to shore as night was approaching, the body would soon be moved to Albion Hospital, he'd agreed to meet it there also with a medical professional that one of the organisations that had its fingers in the various fingers in the multiple pies around here had sorted out.

Judith was waiting for him.

"Any trouble?" Harry asked.

"A wizard under polyjuice, was just told to monitor the situation, mind wipe anyone who talked about aliens too loudly."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "That's a bit drastic." He said. "Considering." He nodded towards the clock tower, which still didn't look stabilised.

"Plenty of magic going on in there." Judith said in reply to his head nod.

"None of it dangerous." Harry said as he looked back over at the clock tower, every so often he could see the flare of a spell, even from this distance.

"No." Judith confirmed. "Ioan's doing another sweep of the perimeter. Here he comes now."

Harry looked around and didn't bother being surprised when he came up behind him.

"Just saw some Ministry people turn away a few wizards and witches on brooms, wanting to have a look." Ioan said his tone amused, though probably not in relation to the Ministry.

"We shouldn't need to deal with this for much longer, there's a tug boat and a crane on their way that'll get rid of the ship." Harry said jabbing a finger towards the river.

"What was inside?" Judith asked curiously.

When he told them both Ioan and Judith stared at him.

Harry shrugged. "Is it any stranger than the Bandrils?"

Ioan looked at Judith and shrugged.

"I thought it'd be you guys who'd make pigs fly with your perverted magic sticks not aliens." Judith commented.

-/

Harry looked up at the security cameras approached Albion Hospital. Judith and Ioan he'd told to go home, or at the least not to hang around Downing Street or London for that matter.

There wasn't anything else they could do, the ship was in the process of being craned out of the Thames and would soon be on its way to Porton Down, a facility that among other things wasn't under the thumb of Torchwood One as far as he could tell. Nor was it aligned with UNIT, which seemed to please Brigadier Sterling.

He'd had to walk and make it through several layers of security, he'd let Ioan take the Land Rover with him when he left. Though apparating wasn't an option at the moment.

It seemed like the whole of London had been blanketed with anti-apparition wards.

Ioan had told him that the strength of them had steadily increased as afternoon turned into evening. He said it felt like a Quidditch game-style wards multiplied by about 100.

Harry could tell there was something, but Ioan said that you could sense those things if you played games around such wards.

Maybe in a parallel universe Harry had been such a bloke, playing Quidditch games with Ron and Ginny. The thought made him grimace.

Now he only used a broom for the occasional flight. Other aircraft being far more interesting to fly than riding around on a broom, plus he didn't have to worry about his extremities freezing on long flights.

As he passed through the last layer of security his phone rang.

Which was odd, because not that many people had the number to his phone in his pocket.

"_Mr Potter_." Said the voice of Mr Harry Pearce, MI5 Section D.

"Mr Pearce." Harry said as he stepped off to the side. The soldiers guarding the hospital's entrance paid him no heed as he'd passed through all the security without being shot. "How long have you been watching things Mr Pearce?" Harry asked.

"_Sooner than anyone else might have. How much do you know?"_ Pearce asked getting down to business.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Do you really expect me to give you an answer to that question?" The silence from Pearce confirmed he didn't.

"_Should I consider it fortunate that most of the cabinet is outside London at this time?" _Pearce asked.

"Very." Harry replied. "You should also remove any operatives that you have at, near or even in the general vicinity of Downing Street." Harry said and hoped Pearce wouldn't ask anything further of him.

"_And why would that be Mr Potter?_" He asked.

Harry sighed. "Just as your friend was stuck in the past and I had to venture outwards to get a solution to that problem, this is another of them."

"_An answer without any information, isn't much of an answer."_

_Well it's the best you're going to get._ Harry mused to himself. "I am simply trying to preserve" Harry paused as he was about to say 'the timeline'. At that moment Harry hated knowing the future. Hated that there were some things he knew he couldn't interfere with, that there was a wider continuity, a wider web around him. He could take away a few stands of the web, move them around but some things had to hold the web up. "I'm trying to preserve…." He started again and trailed off and sighed again.

"_Mr Potter?_" Pearce asked.

"Mr Pearce, can you take it on good faith that what I'm telling you is true and honest. Bug Downing Street if you have to, do it in the next hour and then get out."

Pearce's silence indicated he had to explain further.

"The events going on over the next 24 hours fall into the same category as the Shoreditch Incident, Black Thursday and the business with Operation Golden Age."

"_Evacuation is not an option I take it?_" Pearce asked, himself sighing.

"No." Harry said. "I have some things to investigate, I can swing around later and explain further and assist you and your team in person." Harry offered. It was something he didn't think he was going to do himself, but _somehow_ the Doctor had managed to fire a missile remotely from a somewhere that would destroy Downing Street.

How he'd done that and the fall out would need to be managed. If he didn't do it he wondered who would.

There was some silence from Pearce.

"_Someone will meet you when you enter Thames House. Good day Mr Potter_."

Then the line went dead.

"Probably not a good day." Harry said to himself as he walked into Albion Hospital.

It was as he was approaching the Mortuary that he heard and felt a wind barrelling through the corridors of a space-time vessel dematerialising.

There were also a lot more soldiers around as he made his way towards the mortuary entrance.

"What's the situation?" Harry asked showing his pass to the solider who appeared to be in charge.

"The…" He paused for a moment seemingly trying to think of the right word.

"Specimen." Harry supplied, he wasn't sure if these men were ready to casually talk about aliens.

He nodded. "The specimen came to life and escaped from the mortuary, it was shot."

"And there was a man." Another of the soldiers said. The lead soldier nodded.

"A man?" Harry asked. "Northern accent, leather jacket, wandering around like he owns the place?"

The soldier looked at him in complete surprise. "Is he one of your lot sir?"

Harry shook his head mildly. "I've met him." Harry said and left it at that.

In the mortuary he found something he didn't expect. And a dead pig.

"I didn't think Torchwood had its fingers in this pie." Harry said as he found a woman that Jack had described, to him, though he'd not met.

"T-T-Torchwood?" The woman turned and he noticed a bandage on her head.

"Are you alright Ms Sato?" Harry asked.

She nodded and adjusted her glasses. "How do you know me?"

"Jack and I have a drink every so often." She almost rolled her eyes and Harry quickly added. "Not like that." Harry smiled. "I know Jack likes to shag anything with a pulse. We're just friends."

"Who are you?" She asked cautiously.

Harry showed her his pass. "Harry Potter, LPI."

"The League of Paranormal Investigations. You get copied on UNIT's security bulletins."

"And I thought Torchwood had a rift to worry about and I didn't know you were a medical Doctor?" He asked.

She shook her head. "I, well, Owen asked me to cover for him." She gestured to the slab where the dead pig was lying.

"A good shot, straight through the brain." Harry said and walked over to the X-rays on the wall. "Scrambling anything useful in there." Harry said to himself. "So how come you're not here and not someone from the towering importance of Torchwood One?"

Sato smiled slightly at his dig at One. "Jack pulled some strings said we should deal with it." When Harry didn't seem surprised she continued. "You know why." She fixed him with a questioning look.

"As I said Jack and I are friends." She looked at him knowingly. "Not sex buddies. Though he keeps trying."

Harry took one final look at the body.

"What…what should I do with the body?" Sato asked as Harry turned to leave.

Harry shrugged, he wasn't really sure. He'd come because he'd been asked to look in, and because he was curious. "If Jack doesn't want it someone from the military will be along to claim it."

"You're not…" She trailed off.

"No. There's far too many people around for me to take it, and it's not my field." _Not unless someone's pretending to be a pig or turned something into the pig. _Which, Harry mused was _possible_ he wondered if there had been any experiments on when happened when someone died in animagus form. He then quickly dismissed it as other magical experiments involving humans and aliens came back into his mind, making him shudder slightly.

Harry exhaled as he left Albion Hospital.

"One crisis down several more to sort out." Harry said as he looked up at the security cameras again.

-/

Thames House.

His security clearance very likely exceeded everyone's here in the general sense. Broadly speaking he and LPI had clearances that went up, above and beyond most things.

Though that didn't mean he was copied or had immediate access to every bit of information that was going through the security services. Nor did he want to.

There was enough to worry about with magic and aliens without mixing in the geopolitical issues that were constantly bombarding the security services.

Said security clearance had let him walk through the various security check points and it wasn't until he had reached the corridor, well, one of the corridors that he suspected that Harry Pearce's section lurked down.

"Harry Potter?" A woman stepped into his field of vision. He recognised her from somewhere but couldn't quite place it. Likely a security briefing of some sort that passed his attention that wasn't related specifically to geopolitical or local security stuff.

Harry nodded. "That's me."

"Could I see your pass?" She asked.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "I've managed to get this far into Thames House, if I managed it without a pass your security's seriously flawed and I'll go and watch the alien incursion from my house."

She smiled. It was a smile that he used frequently when he had to go into the Ministry, a smile he'd used with the Minister. He and Kingsley had drifted somewhat, though he still conversed it wasn't really friendly.

It probably wasn't going to get more friendly after today and what was to come.

Harry sighed and handed over his security pass.

"Thank you." She said after more than glancing at it, she really studied it, then she gestured down a non-descript corridor.

Through a fairly normal looking door were a set of circular pods. Harry adjusted the bag he had slung over his shoulder and stepped in.

Then as the pod doors rotated and he felt a slight tingle up his back of a powered scanning device. It was obviously alien technology, or maybe it was something of Torchwood's some reverse engineered gubbins.

Then the alarm went off and the pod was bathed in a friendly red light. The woman who had entered the pod with him.

"Jo Portman." Harry said aloud as he finally remembered her name. She'd been guarding the Prime Minister's son during some disturbance earlier this year. The son that no longer had a father after today, or perhaps he hadn't had a father since before today, dead via alien encounter. Harry didn't let that weigh on his thoughts, too much. There were other larger concerns.

"Response 160a, that's interesting." Said a man with glasses who rushed up and switched something on the pods and allowed Jo Portman to leave.

Harry at this moment briefly wished for a sonic screwdriver.

"Let him out Colin." Said a voice Harry recognised and saw Harry Pearce walking over.

As the doors opened Harry walked out. "I'm sure it's a scanning error, or it could be the weapons on my person." Harry said casually as he shook Pearce's hand.

"My office Mr Potter." He said walking away.

"So what's going on at Downing Street?" Harry asked as he took a seat in one of the chairs in Harry Pearce's office.

"They're collecting their alien experts. You weren't invited?" He asked curiously.

"I'm not in their address books." Harry replied simply.

"Not since the 1970s." Pearce countered.

Harry exhaled. "One complicated thing at a time."

"This is as complicated a situation that we have faced since that '97 disaster." Pearce said gravely.

"Be thankful that the Prime Minister and the cabinet wasn't slaughtered this time around and an Ice Lord made ruler of Great Britain."

Pearce stared at him. "Small mercies." Then someone opened the door and walked in.

"Harry, we've just been copied on a response to the keyword search for the panic line." Said a woman with brown hair and a calm yet flustered state to her body language.

"Panic line?" Harry asked.

"'Support hotline'." Pearce provided. "Another section deals with that, thank goodness. Ruth Evershed, Harry Potter."

"League of Paranormal Investigations." Harry said offered her his hand.

"Yes, I know, you're one of the clearance all people, above UNIT and all that." She said as she passed pieces of paper to Pearce.

"Code Nine; Red flagged?" Pearce asked.

"Key words during a crisis like this, we monitor it like the other help lines as sources of information. Just in case something turns up."

"And what words came up?" Harry asked. "As red flagged."

"There's been a registration of 'blue box', 'the Doctor' and 'TARDIS'." Harry felt a chill go down his back. Pearce noticed.

"You know these?" He passed the pieces of paper to Harry.

The three words weren't the only words on the list. The list was columns and columns worth of words that covered several pages.

Harry wished he had a photographic memory so he could remember all of them, but he couldn't. But he did recognise several of the words.

"What's happening now?" Harry asked.

Ruth responded looking between them. "The army's been mobilised with orders from Downing Street, to get him, he's one of these experts there're collecting."

Pearce looked to Harry. "Let them do it, what is about to happen will happen." Harry said with a sigh. He knew that several good, smart people from UNIT and elsewhere were already in Downing Street.

He could stop this, but what of the effect on his past, and the Doctor's future which was tied into his own past.

He hated this sometimes.

"Get Colin and Malcolm onto getting those links up."

"Adam and Zaf are finishing up now, they wanted to stay near by to monitor things." Ruth said and looked between the two men, Harry gave a slight shake of his head.

"Get them back to the Grid Ruth." Pearce said, and when Ruth was at the door he spoke again. "No disruptions Ruth." He said fixing her with a look. She nodded and slid the door closed.

"I suppose you'll want an explanation." Harry said with a sigh.

"Yes." Pearce said. Watching him.

Harry leaned back, knowing this discussion was coming hadn't made it any easier to prepare.

"Your friend who got sent back in time. He knew the future but didn't try to alter it." Harry began.

Pearce watched him curiously.

"You also know that I was in the 1970s." Harry didn't add he'd been there twice. "You might also know that my parents were killed in the 1980s."

Pearce nodded. "I was aware of that Mr Potter." Harry must have looked surprised. "I like to know what I can about other security organisations Mr Potter."

"We should have lunch sometime, when we're not in the middle of a crisis." Harry said flippantly and leaned back further into the chair, trying to calm himself. "You accept I was in the 70s?"

Pearce nodded. "Enough evidence exists Mr Potter. Especially considering you were on the payroll of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce and advised the Prime Minister and were involved in a major military strike force to rescue a diplomat."

Harry snorted. "Fine. Yes. Another time." Harry said. "I was in that time period with the knowledge that my parents would die. That a lot of people would die in the intervening years, people I cared about, and armed with all that knowledge I knew that I could do nothing." Harry took a breath of air. "Because to do so, to make a change like that would alter history."

"But Mr Potter this is currently your present, unless you've been on another jaunt to your respective future, your actions are your own." Pearce replied.

Harry blinked and for a moment wasn't sure what to say.

"After our meeting and my subsequent research I've been reading of Whitaker's temporal research and Doctor Elizabeth Shaw's theories on meta-temporal realities."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "I have it on good authority Whitaker was a bit of a mad man."

"Operation Golden Age, I know Mr Potter." Pearce commented.

"You know who the Doctor is then." Harry said after a few moments.

"That he was UNIT's scientific advisor for some time during the 1970s and 80s." Pearce paused. "And that he's a time traveller."

"That would be a yes then." Harry said. "I think I'd like a drink of water." He rose and walked over to where a tray was sitting.

"So who is that guy?" Jo asked Ruth as she watched Harry's office. The man who was about her age and Harry seemed to be having a serious, though seemingly friendly conversation.

"Harry Potter?" Ruth replied distractedly.

"Yes. They look like they're old friends."

"He's in charge of a meta-security investigative organisation." Ruth replied as she worked on something, several somethings Jo suspected.

"He set off the pods, I've never seen them behave like that." Jo said aloud.

"As he said, he was carrying weapons, and something else the pod systems couldn't identify." Colin said as he pushed his chair over to where they were. "It wasn't an error, it was just reporting something that we don't have in our database of alerts."

Jo looked over to Harry's office as the man stood up and walked over to the tray where Harry kept a jug of water beside his whiskey and other things. Then the man, Harry Potter walked quickly over to the windows and let the blinds down obscuring her view into the office.

"Portman was looking very curiously in here." Harry said as he returned to sit opposite Pearce.

"She is a security officer."

"From here on this is between us, because you want to know." Harry said heavily.

"Want to?" Pearce raised an eyebrow.

"I could just leave it here, go home." Harry took a sip of the water. "But then you'd probably work it out eventually." Harry sighed. "The Doctor's a time traveller, and I've known him for a long time." He paused, swallowing. "And he's told me some things about the future and his future is also my personal past."

"I see." Pearce said after a long pause. "Doesn't any interaction threaten that?"

"The way he and others have explained it to me is some things are fixed, others aren't." Harry shrugged. "Other times he's said that the beginning, middle and end are important what happens in between can change."

"And what do you think Mr Potter?" Pearce was studying him.

"I know what I know, I can't un-know these things." Harry paused and took another sip of the water. "If not by now, then later tonight all the human alien experts inside number 10 will be dead." Harry paused and crossed his arms, making sure his wand was still in his jacket pocket. "Early tomorrow morning someone, I don't know who, someone outside of Number 10 will access a system and order a missile strike on Number 10, under the orders of someone human inside Number 10."

Pearce was silent for several seconds. "What sort of missile?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Something within British waters, probably from the Royal Navy."

Pearce was again silent. "I see, and these are fixed?"

Harry nodded, Pearce was taking this very well and Harry said as much.

"I make it a point Mr Potter to know about things that might threaten the country, even the unbelievable things."

They were silent for a few moments and then the phone intercom on the desk made a noise. Pearce rose and pushed a button.

"_Harry_, _we've got surveillance up for Downing Street_."

Pearce looked back to Harry. "Shall we?"

"So this is the numpty that triggered the red flash?" Adam was looking over Jo's shoulder, he and Zaf had just arrived back from Downing Street. "What's Harry up to?"

"Talking with someone from LPI." Jo looked over at Harry's office, now hidden from the outside world. The man had closed the blinds 10 minutes ago.

"And this guy, and the girl with him?"

"Her name's Rose Tyler, lives with mother in the Powell Estate, been missing for a year." Jo said, a missing posted flashed up on the screen. "Went missing just after those shopping deaths."

"Which UNIT investigated." Adam said as he looked back to Harry's office.

"Adam" Colin called. "Links are up."

"Get Harry." Adam said as he walked in the direction of where Colin was.

Barely a moment later Harry and another man joined him.

"Adam Carter; Harry Potter from LPI, he'll be liaising with us throughout this situation."

"Will I?" The man, Potter seemed darkly amused but offered Adam his hand. "Hi."

"LPI?"

"League of Paranormal Investigations." Harry said without any preamble. "Colin, let's see inside Downing Street."

"I've been getting significant EM fluctuations from inside Downing Street and it's just starting the clear."

"Interesting." Potter said and looked to Harry. "They're probably all dead by now."

Adam looked between Harry and the LPI man. But Harry didn't seem surprised by Potter's announcement.

"I see."

"_Under the jurisdiction of the Emergency Protocols I authorise you to execute this man." _Adam recognised the man in the uniform as General Asquith who was chief of the Defence Staff.

"Can they do that? Under the Protocols I mean?" Potter said aloud, though he didn't appear to be asking anyone in particular.

"Adam." Harry said.

Adam leaned out of the partition. "Ruth, Emergency Protocols."

"Right, on it." She called back.

"They're probably something alien related." Adam heard Potter muttering to Harry.

The man on the screen was talking nervously, but there was something about him, something that was off about the man.

"Lift." Potter said simply and then the man on the screen jumped backwards into it.

"He was the one brought in on the code nine." Adam said. "Along with Rose Tyler." Adam paused and watched Potter. "Could they be in on this?"

Potter shifted. "Depends. They won't kill anyone" Another very slight pause. "Before the day's out."

"Follow him, first floor." Harry ordered.

There was a change of camera angle as Colin hit some keys on the keyboard and it showed…

Adam wasn't sure what it was, it was something green, over 6 foot tall with claws. "What the-" He began.

"Interesting." Potter said. "Go back to Asquith."

Potter had a tone of authority that seemed to make Colin obey him. Adam was about to interject.

"…_The upper floors are under quarantine you will stay where you are, you will disregard all previous instructions. You will take your orders directly from me."_

"_Mr Green sir, you should come with me, we should evacuate the entire building_." The armed police officer said.

"He's got some sense at least." Colin muttered.

"…_Have you read the Emergency Protocols?" _Asked Joseph Green, somehow he had become the most senior parliamentarian in London during all of this. Somewhere in Thames House a big argument was going on with the rest of the Cabinet that was trapped outside London.

"_Then don't question me, seal off number 10, secure the ground floor. And if the DOC-tor makes it down stairs shoot on sight!"_

"No cameras in the lift I take it?"

"Not linked up to the security system." Colin said.

"Let's see where Tyler and there was another person in the background when the Doctor stopped in the lift." Potter said looking at the screen.

"Okay, just a second….oh." Colin paused as another camera filled the screen, this one's sound seemed distorted, or maybe it was the huge green things with claws that didn't sound right.

Adam was struggling with what he was seeing, though he noted that neither Harry nor Potter or Colin were surprised by what they were seeing.

Potter seemed quite interested in it.

"Who's the woman?"

"Harriet Jones." Colin said almost immediately. "She's one of handful of MPs still in Downing Street."

As they were talking the man in the leather jacket burst in with a fire extinguisher and started releasing it around the room at the…at the aliens. It was ruining the sound.

Then the two women and the man took off out of the room.

"Harry, I've got the Emergency Protocols." Ruth said.

"Keep monitoring it Colin, anything…" Harry looked to Potter.

"Anything more weird than giant aliens chasing those three along some corridors give us a shout." Potter said that with an incredible amount of casualness, it made Adam instantly suspicious of him.

"The Emergency Protocols are a series of procedures and information detailing what the British government should do in the event of a catastrophic event." Ruth said as she handed out sheaths of paper to the people seated around the table.

Adam noted that Potter seemed interested, but not as much as the others.

"Some of it's tied into alert phrases here and at GCHQ, most of it was implemented after the '97 incident. But there's been protocols in place since the late 70s." She continued.

"Implemented under advisement from UNIT I'm guessing?" Potter asked.

"Yes. There's a list of people in the Protocols that can help in a crisis, some with search terms associated with them."

"A lot of them are already present inside Downing Street." Jo said.

"Scratch them off the list, they're all dead." Potter said, almost flippantly, but there was something else to his voice, an edge.

Then someone's phone rang, it turned out to be Potter's.

"Sorry, have to take this." He said answering it. "Hermione?" Then he stepped out of the room.

"Hermione?" Harry answered and stepped out of the room.

"_Harry!_"

"That's my name Hermione." Harry exhaled and leant against the corridor wall. "I'm guessing you're calling about something of great importance that's happening?"

"_I was asked to contact you again Harry, something's happening at Downing Street, something that made the portraits all leave in terror._" Hermione's tone was accusatory.

"I've not had anything to do with that." He said.

"_But you know something. Where are you? I saw you working with the military but no one after they took away the spaceship you left as well._"

"I have several things to take care of Hermione. Tell whoever it is who is annoying you to annoy me not to go anywhere near Downing Street."

"_Is this something to do with what you or the Doctor knows?_" Hermione asked calmly.

Harry wanted to say yes, and wanted to trust Hermione but she was ringing on behalf of the Ministry and might feel compelled to tell them.

Obviously he'd taken momentarily too long to reply. "_I see. Are we safe at the Clock Tower? Aside from the damage already caused." _That last bit seemed directed at him, like it was his fault a spaceship crashed into it.

"Perfectly safe." He answered immediately. The people that were going to die were already dead, it just left the aliens in Downing Street. "Though no one should return to Downing Street for…" He trailed off. "The rest of the week."

"_I see_. _Is this something you'll share with me?"_ She asked and Harry wanted to say yes, but wasn't sure if Hermione would want to be burdened with the knowledge.

"Of course." He lied. "In time."

"_Liar." _There was some humour in Hermione's voice. "_But a good lie. See you soon Harry" _There was a pause. "_You're not anywhere dangerous are you Harry?_"

"I am perfectly safe. There's even tea and biscuits where I am." Harry said as he looked across the room.

Hermione snorted. "_Trust you to find somewhere like that."_ Then she ended the call.

-/

Harry bumped into Adam Carter as he returned to the room.

"Colin says something's interesting's happening." Carter said and then continued back to the room where Colin was.

Harry was already there waiting when the two men arrived.

"Rose Tyler, Harriet Jones and the man who triggered the code nine red flag." Ruth said from where she was seated beside Colin.

Harry looked to Potter. "You'll find he's on the books as 'the Doctor', UNIT will have a file for him." Harry replied to Ruth's quizzical look between himself and Potter.

"I've managed to hack into the conference phone in the Cabinet Room, we should have audio."

There was a noise and then. "…_something's brought the Slitheen race here." _Said the man in the leather jacket, the 'Doctor'.

"They're really aliens." Adam said aloud.

"Shh." Potter said.

From the camera angle they could only see the backs of the aliens. One of them began to talk, though it was somewhat muffled, likely due to where the microphone of the conferencing phone was.

"_Slitheen is not our species. Slitheen is our surname. Draf…day…Slitheen at your service."_

"Almost a sales pitch." Harry said from beside Potter.

"Yes. I wonder what they're here for." Potter wondered.

"_So…a family._" Said the Northern man.

"_A family business." _Countered the alien.

"_Then you're out to make a profit. How can you do that on a god-forsaken rock?_"

"Charming." Harry said again.

"Maybe he's just talking the Earth down, we don't want to be invaded." Potter commented.

"There was enough of that in the 60s and 70s." Harry replied. Adam looked to Harry but he didn't give anything away.

The alien seemed to be groaning. _"Your device will do what, triplicate the flammability."_

"That's nonsense." Colin exclaimed.

"_Is that what I said?" _ Asked the Northern man.

"_You're making it up."_

"He is." Colin said. Adam was about to say 'don't agree with the alien' but stopped himself.

"_Oh well, nice try. Harriet, have a drink I think you're going to need it." _Said the Northern man, the Doctor, passing the bottle with his right hand. Adam mused that that was wrong, though he couldn't remember why.

"_You pass it to the left first."_ Harriet Jones said. Then Adam remembered it was something Fiona had said when they'd been on a mission together.

The man then passed it in the other direction to the young woman.

"_Now we can end this hunt. Let us slaughter." _Said the alien that had been speaking. Adam couldn't tell which alien was speaking, they all appeared to be similar in size and shape, but one was gesticulating with its claws at the front of the group.

"He's very confident." Ruth observed.

"He is that." Potter agreed.

"_2000 years ago this was marsh land. 1730 it was occupied by a Mr Chicken."_

"He knows his history." Ruth said

"He was probably there." Potter muttered again.

"_1796, this was the cabinet room. If the cabinet's in session and in danger these are about the four most safest walls in the whole of Great Britain. End of lesson."_

Metal barriers slid across the door way, but it didn't appear to stop the audio.

"_Installed in 1991 three inches of steel lining every single wall. They'll never get in."_

"_And how do we get out?" _Said a young female voice.

"_Ah."_

"Is that true?" Adam asked.

Potter shrugged. "Which part?"

"There is a steel lining to the cabinet room. They practically disassembled the cabinet room, built the box and then rebuilt the cabinet room." Ruth started. "It was lined in 1991 and then after the 1997 incident it was rebuilt and reinforced based on the damage the invaders' weapons had done." Ruth had paused slightly over the term 'invaders'. He'd been in the Middle East during that crisis and coup executed by Greyhaven and Staines. Though even now most of what went on had been placed under the Official Secrets Act.

Then there was a noise of the sound cutting out.

"Looks like they've cut communication lines into the cabinet room." Colin said.

"Continue monitoring the rest of Downing Street."

-/

"Harry, they're making an announcement to the media." Harry looked up and realised Jo wasn't talking to him but Harry Pearce.

They stood for a few minutes watching the "acting Prime Minister" speak to the media.

"Can we cut the transmission?" Pearce had asked. Ruth shook her head.

"They've opened up the cabinet bunker again." Colin called over as the "acting Prime Minister" finished talking.

"I've got sound coming in from the desk outside the cabinet room." Colin said as Adam and Potter joined him. Harry had walked quickly to his office to make phone calls.

"…_cause there's nothing there. You attack every other country on Earth, they retaliate; fight back. World War Three. Whole planet gets nuked."_

"_And we can sit through it in our space ship waiting in the Thames._" A woman's voice, not one of the aliens'.

"No they can't." Potter said with a half smile.

"_Not crashed. Just parked. Barely two minutes away."_

"_But you'll destroy the planet, this beautiful place._" Harriet Jones' voice again. _"What for?"_

"_Profit. That's what the signal is beaming into space. An advert."_

"_Sale of the century…reduce the Earth to molten slag then sell it. Piece by Piece. Radioactive chunks….there's a recession out there Doctor. This rock becomes raw fuel…"_

"Still getting some interference." Colin explained for as static threatened to overwhelm the audio.

"_A cost to 5 billion lives…I give you a choice…Leave this planet or I'll stop you."_

There was a noise of laughter.

"_Yes. Me."_

Then there was a noise of the bunker doors closing.

-/

"They're saying there's proof of 'massive weapons of destruction'." Harry threw down the telephone and looked at Potter sitting opposite him in the chair. "The rest of the cabinet can't get through to United Nations."

"A spaceship crashing into the clock tower is pretty convincing." Potter mused. "Maybe there shouldn't have been such a concerted effort to clean up after the '97 incident."

"That mess." Harry shook his head. "Staines wandering around with that Ice Lord."

"If you're interested his name was Xznaal." Potter commented off-handedly.

Harry looked over at Potter. "Unsurprising you should know that Potter." Harry paused. "Now we just wait until the world is brought to the brink of nuclear destruction to preserve this timeline of yours?"

Potter shrugged. "UNIT's been of no help?" He asked curiously.

"UNIT's been through several transformations since the mid-90s Mr Potter."

"Probably not the organisation I remember." Potter mused.

"From the 1970s, before you were born." Pearce queried curiously.

"Exactly." Potter said. Then his phone started to ring. Potter sighed. "Who wants me now?" He said as he answered it walking over to the other side of Harry's office. "Yes?" Harry watched as Potter nodded. "Good, it's safe there then." Potter paused. "Oh? I'm at Thames House. Section D. Vid-link, um yeah. Okay." He ended the call.

Harry rose and eyebrow at Potter.

"You'll get a call in a moment. Seems there's more than one crisis."

The phone rang.

Several minutes later he and Harry were in the meeting room looking at the screen.

"_Vid-link up now Harry." _Said Colin's voice through the intercom.

"_Mr Potter, Mr Pearce."_ The scientist nodded to both of them.

"Professor." Harry said, but beyond being told by the officer in charge the woman's title he didn't know her name.

"_The ship was has been brought in and we've neutralised all energy output."_

"That's not what you've contacted me for. Though I thought I disabled everything."

"_There was a secondary power source, emergency we think."_ She reached to the desk in front of her and the image Potter and himself were looking at changed.

"_We discovered this on the spacecraft, it seems it tagged along for the whole journey._"

Potter looked at the screen. Harry squinted at the image. It looked like a pigeon. The screen switched back to the woman.

"Not to state the obvious but." Harry began.

"_That's what we thought at first Mr Pearce. But we detected ratings close to Silverberg energy." _

"You suspect it's a magical disguise." Potter asked seriously.

"_Yes, you are the organisation for the intersection of such things, and you sent us the ship."_

"Better with you or in the Thames." Potter paused. "Or with certain other organisations."

The woman smiled briefly at him. _"Something all of us down here are happy to deal with. Not that UNIT's been much better lately. Their 'homeworld security' clauses they've pushed through give them more power than our people are happy with."_ She muttered.

Harry made a note to look into these things, he'd heard some things from the Home Secretary about UNIT's moves and their 'undisclosed detention facilities' that they were operating within the United Kingdom and internationally. But UNIT's actions weren't quite within the purview of his section and they'd had enough on their plates without digging into UNIT's business.

"It shouldn't be able to leave. Is all of Porton Down equally…" Potter trailed off.

"_Mr Potter?_"

Potter seemed to be thinking. "Heavy exposure of grounds and areas to alien technology prevents certain magical transportation or makes it extremely dangerous."

"_We're aware of this."_

"Whoever it is, if it is someone, likely won't try to shift away. But keep guards on it all of the time, cordon it off from the ship. It's not connected, probably."

"_Not another pig?_" The professor seemed curious.

"A distraction." Potter dismissed it.

"_And you'll come and assist us?_"

Potter nodded. "After this crisis works itself out, I promised Mr Pearce here I'd assist throughout it." Potter paused. "But there is something you can do in preparation for when I come…"

Harry stood silent as Potter explained what he wanted the people at Porton Down to do, he obviously had his own subterfuges to create when he dealt with the things that was not a pigeon.

Then in the brief moment as both Potter and the Professor paused Harry spoke. "Speaking of which, there appears to be a communication device in the North Sea."

Harry noticed Potter nodding. "_We're trying to organise the Navy to capture, disable or destroy it at the moment Mr Pearce._"

"Good. Keep us informed if you need anything professor."

"_Mr Potter, Mr Pearce."_ Then the signal went dead.

"Now what Mr Potter?"

Potter shrugged. "Wait and see how gullible the UN is, we can see how much we should trust them."

-/

"_Humanity's first intergalactic war begins…_"

"Nice to see the Americans reporting in such a level headed way." Adam commented.

-/

"It's starting!" Colin shouted.

"Show time it seems." Potter said to him as they exited his office.

"What's happening Colin?"

"Someone's using a cypher entrance to the Royal Navy intelligent remote command system." Then he added. "It's still in testing."

"It's a way for arms to be authorised remotely by government order." Ruth supplied to the surrounding group.

"I'm tracing the IP of the computer using the override codes now." Colin reported.

"They've selected a submarine; the HMS_ Taurean._" Ruth said from the computer beside Colin's.

"That's a Trafalgar Class submarine." Adam provided.

"They're entering coordinates for the missile and authorising its launch." Colin reported.

"Where?" Harry asked looking at Potter, they both knew the answer to the question. This was happening just as Harry Potter had said.

"Downing Street." Colin replied in a calm tone edged with concern.

"Sound any and all alerts for everywhere surrounding Downing Street." Harry said as Adam bolted away. "God help anyone who's around there."

Potter turned watching for a moment. "How long until they can fire?"

"The system updates the user for when weapons are free and ready to fire, but it hasn't been tested, I'm not sure how they bypassed the security so fast." Ruth wondered.

"Inside knowledge no doubt." Potter said.

"Missile launch!" Colin exclaimed.

"And so it begins." Harry said looking at Potter.

"Warnings will start hitting every air traffic control between here and the coast." Colin warned. "Counter defence 556 is beginning defensive procedures." He continued in a neutral tone.

"Overridden." Ruth said a moment later.

"Is this how war would start by aliens meddling?" Harry asked.

Potter shrugged again. "Perhaps."

"Missile coming over land."

"Now we stand by and allow a missile to hit Downing Street." Harry said. Ruth looked up at him questioningly, then she looked to Harry Potter who had a determined look on his face.

"All areas around Downing Street have been cleared, it's just the armed police inside who aren't responding." Jo said as she dropped the phone into its cradle.

"The internal warning systems will alert them any moment now." Adam said.

"5 seconds to impact."

There was a noise of a dull thud from somewhere outside of the building.

"Impact."

"Looks like the press are already swarming." Adam said as he looked at the TV. Harriet Jones was running up to the awaiting media.

-/

Two or three crises down, still several more to go Harry mused as he drove up to Porton Down having been out to where the wards that seemed to have been thrown somewhat haphazardly didn't extend to. He'd apparated to his house and picked up a vehicle for the drive to his current location.

Porton Down did not have a friendly drive way. Which was just as well, this wasn't a place you visited for a picnic. Unless you wanted your picnic blanket to come to life and try to strangle you, which was what supposedly some of their experiments with some remains of Auton plastics did in the late 70s.

His LPI pass got him instant access through the gates, a soldier was waiting for him where he parked to escort him to where ever it was that the space craft and the pigeon which wasn't a pigeon was being held.

"Mr Potter." Greeted the professor as he was lead into a monitoring room.

"Professor." He paused looking for some sort of identification.

"Hawksburn." She replied offering him her hand.

"Nice to meet you in person." Harry said as he shook her hand. "So this is our mysterious hitch hiker."

She nodded and pushed some keys on a keyboard bringing up what appeared to be some form of medical scanner output.

"We've registered complex brain function coming from the being, highly suggestive of a meta-transformation." She paused and looked to him, Harry shrugged.

"I suspected that they might get curious."

"They?" She asked.

Harry shrugged again. "The Ministry or someone within the Ministry, I've got some suspicions." Harry paused. "And I still have your commanding officer's assurance I can walk whoever it is out of here?"

She nodded. "Keeping individuals who are under your purview is not something we need to enter into at the moment."

The doors opened in front of him and he stepped into the dull grey room where the pigeon had been corralled into; away from the spacecraft.

Harry made a show to the pigeon of walking around the room and the carefully removed his wand and used it to destroy the cameras that had been placed there at his request. There was no doubt in his mind that there were dozens if not hundreds of others and other recording devices focused here.

"The muggles aren't watching." Harry said looking down at the pigeon.

The pigeon seemed to look at him for a few moments and then transformed into a man.

"Eddie Carmichael?!" Harry exclaimed and shook his head.

"Potter." He grinned as he stretched. "Thought I'd never be able to stand up with the muggles watching me." He grinned again. "Great work, simple. What spell was that?"

Harry didn't bother to answer him. Eddie Carmichael had tried to sell him and Ron some brain elixir or something. Hermione had later suggested it might have contained a psychotropic substance or something.

"How come you didn't jump off when the ship was retrieved?" He almost said 'by the Army', but he was trying to keep his voice as neutral and mildly curious as he could. Harry wasn't sure exactly who the pigeon, Eddie Carmichael was working for.

He looked at him surprised at the question. "They said to keep watch over the ship. Didn't think I'd see you, there, with the muggles, organising stuff."

Harry shrugged and turned around to muse on the paint used on the walls, though they didn't have any, dull concrete was its actual material. He was just giving himself a moment to think.

"I liaise with the muggles in certain situations."

"Really?" Eddie seemed surprised.

Harry nodded. "If I hadn't it would have been impossible for you to leave."

Eddie frowned. "I thought there was something…" He trailed off he looked at him oddly. "Have you put up some wards, to stop apparition?"

His tone Harry noted was somewhat accusatory. "Security is a big thing here." Harry said vaguely, though Eddie seemed to take this as an affirmative.

"You going to let me out Potter. The 'monger's going to want to know what I've seen. You too."

Harry didn't let his interest show, and instead slotted "'monger" away as something to investigate further.

"Oh?" Harry asked.

"If you've been helping the muggles with this space stuff." He said with a shrug as he continue to stretch his muscles. "Never thought I'd get out of that pigeon." He muttered.

"That is what liaise means Eddie." Harry said watching him. This was a guy who had supposedly gotten nine Outstandings in his OWLs. Although, Hogwarts didn't really teach any of the standard GCSE subjects, maybe Carmichael didn't know what liaise meant. Ron had some surprisingly big gaps in his knowledge. Hermione had joked to him during one of their drunken nights a few years ago that Ron had some odd ideas about sex, marriage and how babies were born.

"What, oh yeah." Eddie said readdressing him once more. "So, we leaving, you going to let up the wards? Before the muggles notice you've destroyed their things?"

Harry didn't make any movements, except to lean against one of the walls. "There aren't any anti-appariation wards here Eddie. This is just a very bad place to apparate." Harry said in a calm tone. "Who should I report to, should you fail to get out?" He meant it as a neutral question, but it had an underlying note of threat to it. The sudden change in tone of the conversation seemed to throw Eddie.

"What Potter?" Eddie started to look around. "Cohort'll know." He said looking around at the cameras Harry had destroyed. "You sure the muggles aren't watching?"

"Quite sure." Harry said, completely lying.

"So I could apparate away." He said. To himself.

"I wouldn't." Harry staring at Eddie. "I have no inclination to be sprayed with your body Eddie."

He looked terrified at him. "What?"

"Explosive bodily apparition," Harry paused. "is at least one of the terms I've tried."

"What?" Eddie repeated.

"When a relatively powerful wizard tries to apparate through an anti-apparition ward, the results are not pretty." Harry smiled, though it wasn't a nice smile.

"What do you want Potter?" Eddie seemed to take an uncontrolled step away from him.

"Just to talk, and get you out of here." Harry replied innocently with an underlying calm tone.

"I…I can't…" Eddie started.

Harry smiled again.

"Cohort Dow, the 'monger…that's all." Eddie suddenly said and then looked to the ceiling as though he were concentrating, preparing to try and apparate.

That's when Harry stunned him.

"You were worried he was going to attempt transmigration?" Professor Hawksburn asked.

Harry nodded. They were walking behind a solider who was pushing a stretcher that held Eddie.

"I have no desire to be covered his body, blood and guts from a failed apparition." Harry replied.

"And the knowledge you gained, it means something to your organisation?" She asked curiously.

Harry shrugged. "I'm not sure. It joins the pile of questions I have about what's been going on at the Ministry. In between crises I should have some time to work on these problems." He mused as they passed through another security check point.

"This crisis hasn't finished?" Hawksburn asked curiously and then added. "For you?"

Harry shook his head. "I still have some things with Section D to sort out."

-/

London was slowly coming back to life, the lockdown of the streets had ended, though everywhere around the Clock Tower was out of bounds. The structure at least had been stabilised.

Pulling the Lotus in next to the government looking car that was waiting he stepped out, just as Harry Pearce also stepped out of his vehicle.

"Mr Potter."

"Mr Pearce." Harry said in greeting as he looked around him at the flats that made up the Powell Estate. The Doctor's TARDIS had landed near here, several times in fact.

"Colin detected a sophisticated worm coming from Mr Smith's IP address." Pearce said, handing him a manila folder.

Harry opened it up and read through the highlights of it. It seemed Section D had kept close taps on what Michael Smith, commonly known as 'Mickey'.

Harry knew vaguely about him, though neither the Doctor nor Rose had mentioned much. He knew from the missing persons report that he had been accused of her kidnap and murder when she went off with the Doctor.

The notes stated that the worm had been isolated and also send off to computer science experts. Smith's internet activity continued to be monitored, as did his real world activity.

Which was understandable, he did launch a terrorist attack on 10 Downing Street.

Now he and Pearce would have words with him; Harry knew some of the information. Pearce wanted to know what Smith knew. There were also other entities buzzing around. UNIT probably had a cell waiting in one of their detention facilities. And no doubt Torchwood was also lurking to claim Smith for Queen and Country.

Harry closed the folder and returned it to Pearce. "I take it there's still people keeping and eye on him?"

"Of course." Pearce said shortly as they made their way over to the stairwell.

Mickey pushed himself away from his computer in frustration. His internet had been buggy ever since the Doctor had asked him to use the magic disc he'd been given. He still had it on his desk, despite the information on the disc saying it was useless, use once thing. He'd also started to look further into the Doctor, more so than when Rose had disappeared. He'd actually seen what the Doctor was, what his life was like.

How dangerous he was.

Walking over to the kitchen he emptied the kettle and refilled it, a practice his gran always used to do.

Flicking it on he looked around for a clean mug. Everything in the kitchen smelt a little bit of bleach and other cleaning supplies. He'd used buckets of the stuff to get rid of the Slitheen that had exploded in here. He'd managed to get rid of the sulphur smell at least and the green stains. Though he'd had to bin one of his favourite t-shirts.

Then as he was caught in thought there was a knock on the door. He tensed for a moment before un-tensing, it was probably just Mrs Bradley up the corridor wanting help with her printer or her dodgy satellite she'd got on the cheap.

Instead when he opened the door he found two men at the door.

"Michael Smith."

"Mickey." He said to the older bloke.

"We'll come in." Said the younger block pushing his way in.

"Hang on what…" He started.

"Who are we, why are we here?" Asked the older bloke as he followed the younger guy in.

"Yeah."

"Or should we start with your terror act on Number 10 Downing Street?" The older bloke asked in a deathly serious voice that made his skin run cold.

As he walked in Harry caught a fairly strong smell of bleach coming from the kitchen.

"Cleaning up some bodies Mr Smith?" Harry asked as he went into the small lounge room. Pearce waited until 'Mickey' was seated before taking a seat opposite.

Pearce looked to him, but also noticed how Mickey tensed at the question.

"Dunno what you mean."

"That amount of bleach, I don't think you're spring cleaning." Harry took a seat across from Pearce and looked around the rest of the flat.

Mickey crossed his arms and looked like he wasn't going to say anything.

"You're in something of a precarious situation Mr Smith." Pearce said in the same cool tone.

"And who are you two?"

"Does it matter Mickey?" Harry asked. "We know about your attack on Downing Street-" Harry was cut off by Mickey.

"That wasn't me! I…" He trailed off.

"That was an order from within Downing Street by an MP. Harriet Jones." Harry finished for him. Now Smith was interested.

"You then tried to erase any information of what you had done and erase several search terms associated with the recent business." Pearce finished.

"What'd you mean tried?" Smith asked in an uncertain tone.

"A terror attack on London and you didn't think you were being monitored?" Pearce looked over to Harry, Harry shrugged, he knew very little about this man before him. Pearce probably knew a lot more.

"What…I've got rights!" Smith started.

Harry almost laughed at the naivety of the man. In this situation he was extremely lucky that he wasn't at best incarcerated and at worst dead.

Pearce said so and then continued in a level tone. "Tell us what happened Mr Smith, in Downing Street."

"What?"

Harry exhaled and it seemed to turn into a sigh. "What happened while you were in communication with Harriet Jones, your friend Rose Tyler and the individual known as the Doctor."

Smith almost jumped at the mention of the Doctor.

"You know about him?" He looked at Harry shrewdly.

"We both know about the Doctor Mr Smith, probably far more than you think you know." Pearce continued. "Now, please explain what happened and you may avoid being detained."

"Detained?" Smith croaked looking between them and settled on Harry.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You don't seriously think a missile attack on one of Britain's political buildings wasn't going to be tracked back to the man who pushed the button?" Harry suspected that Pearce's division would have even snuck into Smith's flat and gathered physical evidence that he'd been the person to have literally pushed the button.

Smith slumped into his chair. "What're you going to do with me?" He mumbled.

"That depends Mr Smith." Pearce began as Smith looked up. "And depends on how much help you can give."

It was a several hours later that they departed Smith's flat.

Harry hadn't quite known what Pearce was going to do with regard to Smith. But having him as an informant on things that threatened the UK, of the alien variety and whatever else Smith might be interested in made some sort of sense. MI5 wanted to develop its own contacts and with the way that UNIT was going, and Torchwood and whatever else was out there.

Like his own particular problem, it made sense.

He'd said that to Pearce once they were on the ground floor.

"There have also been situations in the past where your Doctor might be better equipped than my officers or UNIT." Pearce had added with some reluctance.

"UNIT isn't the organisation I remember." Harry mused. "Maybe it's just better funded."

"Something you've still yet to explain thoroughly Mr Potter."

Harry smirked. "I have to keep some secrets." Harry paused as he unlocked his car. "I hope our paths don't cross again, but I think that is quite unlikely. Don't you think?"

"'The 21st century is when everything changes'." Pearce quoted.

"I have a friend who's always saying that." Harry said as he got into his car.

-/

A/N:

_Many things got in the way of finishing this chapter, I hope the next won't have such a long gap between this and that._

_Unwieldy is what this chapter is, it's also probably too long._

_Around about triple the length of what I thought it was going to be. But any of the cut points where I could have cut it would have implied something mammoth happening, which isn't really the case. _

_All the paragraph breaks in this chapter are more akin in my mind to commercial breaks, something happens, fade to black and then back. Than where I could cut it into separate chapters._

_Harry's visit to Porton Down and Harry and Harry Pearce's visit to Mickey Smith is more a sort of webisode sort of addition. It made this chapter even longer and strictly doesn't need to be in the chapter. I could have just told it in flashback or something next chapter, but left it how it is so I can start next chapter afresh._

_The **Spooks** part of this is set in Series 5, after episode 2 and before episode 5._

_I looked back at **Aliens of London** / **World War Three** to write this and was surprised how much doesn't happen. Action wise there's; the ship crashing, UNIT people dead and then a missile strike. Those are the big bits of action. The rest is some running around and a lot of talking. _

_I've tried to include Harry and others in the action as much as possible without having Harry and the Doctor in the same room. As is stated in the chapter the Doctor's still in a bad post-Time War place._

_In this chapter I've also reframed Harry and LPI with regard to UNIT; moving Harry away from UNIT a little bit (not that in this time period they were close) and closer to the British Armed Forces and intelligence community. _

_Mickey is an informant for MI5, it's mostly setup for **School Reunion** I wanted a more plausible explanation than 'Mickey's been looking for aliens' to bring the Doctor and Rose to Deffrey Vale High School in **School Reunion**._

_Finally, in this chapter I flirted with killing off Ron._

_The two wizard spies in the chapter, the polyjuiced person and the pigeon might have been Ron. _


	41. Chapter 41

**Chapter 41**

Harry walked through the corridors of power. The far more busy corridors of power since what the papers had been calling a terror attack on London. The nuclear threat had been played down somewhat, though not from within Britain, it was from outside the United Kingdom; the United Nations that was playing down the narrowly missed disaster that they had approved.

The fact that a space ship had flown over London had been all but forgotten in the ensuing media reporting.

It seemed now that very few people actually saw the spacecraft fly over London and, mysteriously all the BBC's servers that held footage of the spacecraft had crashed, and sadly someone had mistakenly taken a degausser to the back-up videotapes of the, so unfortunately no media companies held footage of the event.

Tim Hitchinson was, from what Harry had heard receiving counselling for his migraine-induced break on air with everything concerning the Americans and the "aliens" now being called into question. Harry wasn't sure what the Americans were up to. Probably nothing, it wasn't as though they'd done anything useful during the events.

-/

Harry smiled at the lady outside the door who let him in almost immediately as he said his name.

He was here to see the Home Secretary, from whom, or rather from his office he'd received a request for a meeting.

"Ah, Mr Potter, Harry here's been filling me in on everything." The Home Secretary said as Harry walked in the door.

Harry raised an eyebrow, he hadn't expected Pearce to be here as well, though given the familiarity between the Home Secretary and Harry Pearce he wasn't that surprised.

-/

Once they were all seated the Home Secretary leaned forward slightly.

"First of all the Prime Minister wished me to pass on her thanks, and the thanks of everyone for the work that you have done Mr Potter, especially during this crisis." The Home Secretary paused. "The wished to say in person but she's currently in talks with the UN and UNIT." The last two organisations had a more than a hint of distaste.

Harry looked to Pearce who had quite a neutral expression on his face.

"All part of the job Home Secretary." Harry said to break the pause in the conversation.

"Yes, your League of Paranormal Investigations, I've been hearing some good things from Porton Down and your work with the Military during this crisis Mr Potter."

"Oh?" Harry asked innocently.

"The Prime Minister, following the disaster that UNIT was involved in at Downing Street is seeking a closer relationship with the UN and UNIT." The Home Secretary explained.

Then Pearce began. "The security services have certain reservations concerning this relationship, as does the military."

Harry leant back into his seat and reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the many things he'd taken to carrying around with him when he was meeting people. "I see." He said and flicked a slider on the box and placed it on the Home Secretary's desk.

Pearce looked at him curiously.

Harry shrugged. "Jamming device." He said in explanation. "So are we going to assassinate the Prime Minister, after all the trouble we went to in order to save the woman?"

The Home Secretary looked slightly worried. Pearce chuckled darkly. "No Mr Potter, if we were going to discuss an assassination it would not be here."

The Home Secretary cleared his throat. "The Prime Minister believes it important to maintain and build on our international ties with UNIT so that the most recent incident does not happen again."

Harry thought about saying that was unlikely, did no politicians remember the past? The cynical side of his mind said _no_ unless it served their purposes.

"I see…" Harry trailed off.

"I've been looking into your organisation Mr Potter, and you still receive some funding from Her Majesty's Government." The Home Secretary began on what Harry thought was an odd tangent.

It was true that the League was funded by the Ministry of Magic and the UK government, though more significantly it was through generated interest and some other investments he'd set up. "Yes, Home Secretary?" Harry raised his inflection on the statement to the point of an implied question.

"And that you were the government's Esoteric advisor in the 1970s, how though I leave up to other people Mr Potter." Harry remained silent while he was talking and hoped the Home Secretary didn't turn out to be a Zygon or Auton duplicate. He'd hate to have to deal with British Heritage if he damaged something in this room in the process of shooting the man.

"We would like to bring your League back into our portfolio of agencies involved in defending the country Mr Potter." The Home Secretary continued.

Harry let out a breath he was holding and removed his hand from his inner jacket where a weapon lay. "I see, without informing UNIT I trust? That I'll be working with the armed forces and the security services more often and you'll leave UNIT to its more 'traditional' role?"

The Home Secretary gave him a tight smile. "Yes, I see you understand Mr Potter." He paused, leaning back in his chair. "These alien incursions and the tensions in your wizarding world, we need someone local, who's not beholden to Geneva."

Harry nodded, but fixed the Home Secretary with a hard look. "Of course, but we should also understand our limits. UNIT is a capable organisation, and is still quite capable, despite recent events. In large scale incursions, should the regular armed forces be involved, untrained there will be a great many unfortunate incidents."

The Home Secretary looked at him for a moment and looked over at Pearce. "I see why you trust him Harry." Then he stood from his chair, Pearce also rose as did Harry. "Thank you gentlemen." The Home Secretary shook both their hands and Harry pocketed his device, following Pearce out of the office.

As they walked down the corridors of power Pearce spoke. "Were you really intending to shoot him?" He asked casually.

"Conversations like that often lead to guns folding out of people's hands or them morphing into species bent on a swift death for anyone close." Harry said as they each swiped their cards to exit one of the security barriers.

"An interesting life you lead Mr Potter, one I hope will not intersect with my work too often." Pearce said as they made their way outside.

"Shall we have lunch Mr Pearce? We can discuss why romance with a Dalek is a bad idea." Harry asked with a grin. Pearce looked at him strangely.

-/

Harry flipped through the pamphlet that he'd picked up from the council offices. It was Ioan who had alerted him to it, thinking it could maybe be something wizard related. But when he'd asked Hermione she hadn't known or heard anything about Cardiff with regard to strange wizarding manipulations.

* * *

The pamphlet explained what seemed like the most inane plan yet, well insane that they weren't hiding it. London had its fair share of secret nuclear facilities.

But that the Cardiff Council were suggesting to destroy a Grade 1 listed building was odd to say the least. Maybe there was something in the water. Maybe a certain horny gentleman was spreading around his magic pills.

Said horny gentleman was swaggering across the room garnering looks from man and woman alike, and enjoying every moment of it.

"Harry Potter, knew you'd call eventually, couldn't get enough of me could you?" He asked as he dropped into the chair opposite him.

"Well I ran into your minion in London."

He looked at him puzzled. "You mean Toshiko?" He asked.

"And she thought you and I were or have shagged in the past." Harry said shaking his head.

Jack grinned at him. "We still can, bring your girlfriend along we'll make a night of it. You wizards love a bit of freaky love."

Harry gave Jack a weird look. "I hope you're talking about a threesome and not about Freki." Harry was never completely sure what Jack was up to, words or the wandering hands the man had.

Jack gave him an approving look. "Nice, though you 21st century guys have got to look beyond simple human forms."

"As long as you're not suggesting Freki and Geri are actual wolves you've shagged Jack."

He shook his head. "Consensual Harry. So what have you called me up for, unless it's just for a chat, because I love to have a drink, talk about past conquests with you."

Harry almost rolled his eyes but he thought Jack would get some pleasure out of that. Instead he pushed the pamphlet over to Jack.

"Are all the councillors totally insane?" Harry asked.

Jack's shoulders slumped slightly. "It'll be dealt with Harry, the Doctor'll turn up and sort it out."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Really? And you know this because…" Harry trailed off as he realised watching Jack's face. "Because you're travelling with him and Rose…" Harry trailed off again.

"After we met you." Jack finished. "You were cute then, better now though." His grin returning.

"So something significant happens with this?" Harry shook his head. "When doesn't something significant happen when the Doctor turns up?" Harry continued musing to himself.

Jack didn't indicate anything. "You should come along, we can do dinner and watch him."

Harry mused on it. "And nothing dangerous happens?"

Jack thought about it for a few moments. "Mickey Smith turns up."

Harry snorted a laugh. "Mickey Smith who blew up Downing Street? I've met him, he's very lucky." He paused. "Fine, I'll come, and I'll ask Daphne."

"Your girlfriend, finally I get to meet her." He grinned at him.

Harry glared back at Jack. "Just as long as you don't go dropping any of your magic pills. She knows all about this Jack."

"Hey, Harry, I'm not gonna drug your girlfriend. It's nice that you've found someone in the business that understands." Jack said as he motioned to a waiter for what Harry hoped was a drink and not an impromptu bout of fellatio in the toilets.

"She's not in 'our' business Jack." Harry replied.

"Really?" Jack leaned forward. "So what does Daphne get up to while you're dealing with your League?"

"She and I have our own lives." Harry added.

"And you just come together for sex and tea afterwards? How very British of you."

Harry glared at him. How very Jack of you he wanted to say but Jack was just smiling through his own joke. So Harry decided to change the subject. "What are your team going to do while we're wining and dining. Surely they'll notice when things start getting groovy."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Groovy? You spent too long in the 1970s Harry Potter."

_Twice._ Harry thought to himself. _I went there twice. _He was bound to pick up some things. Although he didn't say that to Jack.

"My _team_ will be on enforced leave, they know they've got a-" Harry cut Jack off.

"Quirky commander?" Harry offered with a raised eyebrow making Jack grin at him.

"I like that Harry Potter, quirky." He said as some drinks arrived and Jack flashed a broad grin at the waiter who put down the tall glasses of something liquid likely based on hops.

* * *

Daphne had flooed into an establishment near central Cardiff. When Harry had asked if she would like to attend an informal meal with an associate of a similar organisation to his League it had been intriguing. He had informed her that the Doctor would be in the area, though not present at their meal. He seemed to indicate that this man whom they were to have their meal with also was an acquaintance of the Doctor, or had been in the past. But like Harry knew of the future, though unlike Harry it was through direct experience with the Doctor.

It was quite an interesting prospect to know specifics of one's future, because it was one's past and then to be present to watch it occur. Lesser wizards would push such thinking off to theoretical time turner mechanics or the realms of philosophers.

But it had become another reality for Daphne.

She had not been able to accompany Harry in his conveyance to Cardiff from his home, or from London, or indeed anywhere she might be. However, he understood that she had business to pursue. Following the incident in March with the _crash_ in London there had been more requests on her family's business, more wizards purchasing orders to be moved in and out of the country. Certain ingredients and constructions to be used in these unstable times, even if muggles seemed mostly happy to ignore what had happened before their eyes.

_Altered information_, the Ministry did not even need to spread its wings and modify muggles' memories. They were quite efficient at doing so themselves. She did not know if Harry had any hand in this. His sometimes flippant attitude to the Ministry and their relationship to _aliens_ would suggest not. But at other times he was quite serious, he had inferred that the Muggles would take care of some things and that wizards did not need to "poke their wands where it is not needed".

The establishment she had flooed into was an old drinking establishment within Cardiff, it was something of a walk to the establishment where she was to meet Harry and the mysterious gentleman one Captain Jack Harkness.

His name inferred a gentleman, though Harry had scoffed at this assertion. Harry's tone when he mentioned Jack was one of playful insult, as was Harry's way with many things.

She had flooed rather than apparated as Cardiff and its Blaidd Drwg Rift that Harry had talked about both in passing and with regard to Ginevra Weasley's events in the past brought some difficulty when apparating close by.

She had every confidence in her abilities to apparate almost anywhere, but until she could assess the location fully she would not take any chances. Harry had indicated that Captain Harkness had said that there was to be some activity in Cardiff.

Knowing as she did Harry and the company he associated with she was prepared, though curious.

Those that worked with him she found to be pleasant on the occasion where she had encountered them.

Ioan Hrycek was perceived to be far more dangerous than initial appearances would suggest. He had been a proficient and highly skilled Quidditch player until he began to investigate incidents that most wizards would think was just magic, concealed or altered for muggles' benefit he was labelled a _deviant_ and that his mind was addled beyond recognition. He had been exorcised from wizarding society to an extreme degree.

She knew that Ioan was not the only one who had been removed in this fashion, that Harry on occasion utilised associates of Ioan's for work that involved his League's focus that was beyond the scope of those who were part of the League.

Judith was also interesting, she was powerful in an unreadable way, the first time Daphne had met her she felt that the woman had appraised her and judged her capabilities. When they had been in the past during the 1970s together Daphne had seen what Harry had to do, a reflection of what he had done. Harry had alluded that Judith was more capable than he was, and on that first meeting with no words exchanged between them Daphne knew Harry spoke the truth concerning Judith. It was a side to Harry and his League that he had implied that Ioan tended not to wish to be exposed to, unless necessary, something that Harry respected of his associate.

It was another 10 minutes or so before she arrived at Cardiff Bay and for the first time in quite a while to be confronted with the Blaidd Drwg Rift.

It was here, or somewhere close above that Harry had utilised the unique and hazardous properties to pursue Ginevra Weasley through time, she herself having befallen to the Blaidd Drwg Rift's machinations. And it was now that a blue police box was standing close to the monolith.

"Best not to stare at it, he might notice." Daphne didn't flinch as she heard Harry's voice and as his hands wrapped her in a hug from behind, even with the charms keeping her body warm against the cold it was good to feel the warmth from his body against her.

"I was merely enjoying the view, now in possession of more of the facts of everything here." She explained as she turned around to face him, making him smile more broadly.

"Come on." He said with a mock sigh. "I guess its time for you to meet Captain Jack Harkness."

* * *

The establishment that they met the Captain had a view into the plass, but it seemed the view out and the tables and lounging chairs had been reserved for their party exclusively, though Daphne did see a few other patrons within the establishment as she and Harry entered.

Harry appeared to be familiar with the layout of the establishment as he led the way through.

Standing by outside on the balcony looking out into the plass was a man; taller than Harry in a long coat with his back to the establishment's interior. He heard them approach, which was interesting Daphne noted as the establishment's flooring's flooring was a particularly thick pile carpet.

Captain Jack Harkness was wearing a light blue shirt; it had been well ironed, with a white undershirt below. As the breeze caught the Captain's coat Daphne saw for a moment red braces set against the light blue of his shirt. On his hip lay a holster containing a weapon of a similar design to the weapons Harry would often carry. He beamed broadly and threw out his arms.

"You came Harry Potter."

On his wrist she noted was a large leather…something. It was not a time keeping device she was sure of it, even though some muggles had large timekeeping devices strapped to their arms, this was not one of them. There was something…she wasn't sure about it, the way he had dressed himself, the presence of it was not for a purpose, not a commonly used purpose for such thing as timekeeping she was sure.

"And this would be the lovely Daphne Greengrass!" He said offering her his hand.

She took it; shaking his hand. He had a firm, though not determined hand shake, his hands were rougher than Harry's but from the feel of his hands there did not seem to be anything recent about his hands, no scarring or blisters or dryness. Harry's hands changed from week to week from the work he performed.

But this man, this Jack Harkness, his hands seemed unchanged, it was interesting and odd, though precisely why, Daphne was not sure.

"Captain Harkness." Daphne said as she let go of the Captain's hand. There was something when she said his name and title, something…Daphne wasn't sure.

Captain Harkness' mannerisms were so slightly off, as though what was intended to be read; was there presented, but hidden.

Daphne allowed a small smile as they sat down. Captain Harkness was a deceit, though a cleverly crafted one, it was rather interesting to know so little about the man before her, yet know much more than she suspected he intended to reveal to the world.

"How about we start with an apéritif? The party won't get started until later tonight." Captain Harkess said as he reclined in the lounging chairs they had removed themselves from the windy balcony to.

"The potentially catastrophic party?" Harry asked, he seemed not as relaxed as Captain Harkness, but there was still an amused tone to his voice. Harry had explained that while the Captain knew of the precise events of tonight's activity in wider Cardiff, he had not enlightened Harry on the specifics.

"There's always something catastrophic, or a party when the Doctor's about Harry, you should know that." A knowing statement from the smiling Captain.

Harry shrugged. "Most of the time when he visited me when I was younger there wasn't anything catastrophic." Harry paused. "That I knew of." He continued with some deliberate ponderous sarcasm.

As the drinks were ordered it seemed that Captain Harkness knew the waiting staff well enough here to be on familiar terms with them.

"So Daphne, how come you didn't come down here with Harry?" Captain Harkness asked curiously.

"Your invitation came somewhat late Captain Harkness. I, like Harry have my own business to attend to. I'm sure you would understand that."

"Call me Jack, Daphne. A special friend of Harry's doesn't need to worry with titles."

Daphne smiled at Harry for the briefest of moments. "If you wish." Daphne paused to take a sip of her drink, watching him carefully. There was the smallest shift in his mannerism, the way he was lounging in the chair changed, ever so slightly.

Then he smiled and reached forward and took a long gulp of his own drink.

She noted that Harry had been watching the interchange with some amusement, he was not a stranger to the 'awkward silences' either, as he'd joked to her with regard to his meetings with a variety of government individuals.

Though, while both herself and the Captain had not spoken for more than a few seconds his interchange had been anything but silent.

He had in the moments as he took a drink sought to find something in her, she could see his eyes watching her body, _reading_ as some liked to call it.

But she prided herself in negotiations not to allow herself to be _read_. Muggle or wizard both attempted in negotiations to gain the upper hand, that was how business was conducted.

But this man; Captain Harkness. He was not foreign as the Doctor or others were they were_ foreign _even at a distance, but this Captain Harkness, there was something estranged concerning him.

"Maybe I should take up your offer for a threesome Jack, you've certainly eyes for Daphne." Harry said with his casual humour that he used to break her silent analysis. It seemed, whilst studying Captain Harkness she had forgotten that Harry would not be as interested in the man as she was, or more than likely he knew more than she did.

As they were both acquaintances of the professional and personal that was likely, she did not ask or expect to know each of Harry's acquaintances as he did, she preferred to discover these people herself rather than have Harry relay information to her.

Although she recalled him saying he needed to explain what a 'Dah-lek' was at some point, he had been moving several blueprints and other designs when he'd mentioned it off hand.

Harry's comment seemed to relax the Captain as she looked to him for a moment, seemingly removing her concentration from Captain Harkness, but Daphne continued to monitor him even through she looked over to Harry momentarily.

-/

In this pause the conversation changed to more mundane topics until they transitioned to a dining table some quarter of an hour later.

"Are those that your organisation is beholden to not concerned of the events to take place here tonight Captain Harkness?" Daphne asked glancing out the window, night had come and although it was quite dark around Cardiff Bay there was significant lighting illuminating the plass. That was something muggles and their buildings did that wizarding buildings and open spaces did not; illumination. There were benefits and disadvantages to illuminating all the spaces where people frequented.

"I'm in charge here." He paused and continued in Welsh. "We're an independent bunch here in Wales, we don't need to be told what to do."

Harry indicated that he understood and she understood Captain Harkness perfectly, though she did find it curious that much of his accent disappeared as he spoke.

"And you're very good at hiding what you're about." Harry commented idly as he watched the cloudy skies outside and then refocused on her. Daphne suspected Harry was about to be blunt in the way that amused him often. "Daphne knows Jack's not your name. Jack."

Daphne was satisfied that she had been correct, as Captain Harkness shifted from his lounging state to a more upright posture. Though she wouldn't have, confronted Captain Harkness with her questions. Hiding one's identity was up to an individual. But those small elements that revealed the deception she found sporting to detect.

Captain Harkness seemed surprised, both by her detection and of Harry's declaration of knowledge, clearly it was not something Harry had made Captain Harkness aware of in their past encounters.

Harry chuckled. "I was curious about you Jack, odd that you don't look anything like the man in the 1940s." Harry paused to take a drink, a sparking water. Harry had noted earlier in the night that Jack could 'drink like a fish' and he tended to follow if he wasn't concentrating, and that he intended to drive home following their engagement with Captain Harkness tonight. Daphne was aware of the muggles' laws involving operating a conveyance whilst intoxicated. There was a whole chapter on apparating whilst intoxicated that one needed to read before obtaining a licence. Although unlike the muggles no Ministry official could prevent you from doing so.

Harry continued to speak. "The Doctor mentioned a while ago" Harry paused "Or recently."

"Depending on your point of view." Captain Harkness cut into Harry's musings with a grin.

"That you were something of a conman, a rogue." Harry flashed Captain Harkness a smile. "I think you're still a rogue. And I don't care. Two of my best friends have titles as names." Harry said with a shrug.

Daphne was not surprised with Harry's attitude to Captain Harkness' alias, especially as he said of his other acquaintances. Even those he worked with. Judith had been quite obstinate in not revealing anything of her identity, she seemed to take great pleasure in the annoyance it caused her.

It did not answer the question of Captain Harkness' hands, they were almost unnaturally youthful, even if her were a wizard there would be signs of age present in his hands.

As their main course plates were taken away Daphne reflected that his age and his mannerisms were also not explained by his position as a rogue.

* * *

It was shortly after that they had ordered a dessert, from the establishment's rather extensive menu that the 'show' as Captain Harkness had described it began.

"Looks like it's kicking off." Captain Harkness said turning to look out the window.

Only Harry could see out the windows without turning his head, he, when they had taken their seats deliberately sat that way she assumed.

"Interesting." Harry said as he rose from his seat going over to the window.

One of the waiting staff glided over, Daphne noticed, carefully folded and replaced the linen napkin on the table before drifting away far out of perceptible listening distance.

Daphne decided to rise from the table and join Harry outside where he had made his way to, although she did have some desire to remain and speak to Captain Harkness he seemed more amused watching Harry's reaction to the current events than engaging in a discussion with her.

* * *

Outside the wind was churning, and down in the plass there was a light beaming out of the police box; the Doctor's TARDIS.

The beam of light was thundering up into the sky forcing the clouds to churn spinning in a vortex of light and energy.

Then the ground rumbled; the sensation was as though a great train rumbled past her feet. Then the sensations increased like the Earth was shaking and ripping with the energy emanating from the Doctor's box.

"It's amazing isn't it?" Harry exclaimed breathlessly as the sky swirled and the ground beneath them rumbled and roared.

A few years ago amazing would not have been the word that she would have used to describe such events that were being presented before her.

But Captain Harkness's indifference to this event and Harry exuberance not just for this event but his work in general gave her confidence.

So it was an interesting engagement to be one of the few people present at this event, to see the sky swirl and pulse with energy and to view it in a new way, confident that there was no danger for herself or for Harry. She was free to experience it with abstraction, removed from present dangers. It was quite an enlightening experience.

Then as suddenly as it began the light and energy spluttered off and they were left in a resounding silence, only the wind and a slight groaning and wheezing as the grounds around them seemed to grind out a sigh of relief that the assault on their roots and footings had ended.

Then Harry kissed her in a glorious intense wave of energy and excitement.

After such excitement it was somewhat odd to be settling down again to a dessert which had been prepared during the noise and excitement, seemingly ignoring the events outside the establishment's walls.

Daphne rather approved of their dedication to their business, Captain Harkness implied that certain businesses that had been present in Cardiff and around the Bay were familiar with the particular foibles and quirks of the area. To which he was referring to the Blaidd Drwg Rift, which ordinary muggles were supposedly not aware of, and despite the events in the past year most muggles were happy to create alternate explanations for the events that had occurred.

Many wizards would simply put this down to wizarding superiority in memory modification, but there was much truth to the idea that ordinary muggles simply rejected what they did not understand, filling in the gaps with whatever functioned in their reality.

* * *

Much later as she watched the countryside pass from the window of Harry's conveyance, having acquiesced to Harry's firm offer to accompany him home. Harry spoke, after they'd been in companionable silence for a short time as they departed Cardiff.

"How did you find Jack?" Harry asked as he adjusted the lighting on his conveyance; the road they were on was empty and the lighting, the 'highbeam' allowed for greater penetration of the night.

"He is a complicated man." She said looking to him as he drove. "With some interesting dishonesties."

"Like his name?" Harry mused.

"Not just that Harry." She said turning away from the side window to share Harry's gaze out of the front window and reached forward to the controls of the conveyance and adjusted the heating. She could feel Harry smirking at her; that she now knew how to adjust the heating within this and his other conveyances.

There was a simple complexity to it, rather than utilising a spell that could achieve similar results.

"Jack has…" Harry trailed off. Daphne glanced at him and saw him struggling to find the correct wording for what he knew. "He's alluded to gaps, before he started travelling with the Doctor he worked for a temporal agency that left gaps in his knowledge." He said eventually.

Daphne returned her gaze to the road ahead. That could account for some of his otherworldly nature, but there were still several things that she was unsure of about Captain Harkness.

"You don't need to meet him again if…" Harry started gently and reached down to take her hand.

She shook her head. "Captain Harkness is interesting Harry, and aside from Draco there are few people we can have honest social gathering together with."

Harry chuckled lightly. "In some ways Draco is a better companion to have an honest social get together than Captain Jack Harkness. There'd be at least less sexual innuendo."

Daphne agreed. Captain Harkness did seem to have a great many tales of sexual conquest, though also tales of drinking and near death experiences.

It was of the latter that Harry also enthused about, though she knew that it was of those experiences that Harry truly enjoyed.

"Perhaps we should see Draco more often, and Hermione" She paused. "And her boyfriend." She commented with a slight tone of amusement.

Harry laughed. "Yes, let's have a get together with Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, what could possibly be wrong with that?"

* * *

_A/N:_

_This chapter started so well and I really intended to finish it within a week or three. Then, my motivation to write kinda evaporated somewhat. _

_Some of this chapter I had to kinda force myself to write. So there is a little bit of a return to a few stand by concepts that I've had waiting in the wings; namely more Daphne perspective story telling and Daphne meeting Jack which I'd intended to happen for a while._

_The start of the chapter with Pearce and the Home Secretary I wrote before my motivation evaporation began. I was tempted to post just that, but my general rule for chapters is a minimum of 2000 words for a chapter._

_The last section of the story with Daphne in the car with Harry was written recently, as I've begun to re-find my writing motivation (and, importantly, worked out what killed it). _

_All of the stuff with Harry, Daphne and Jack is set during "__**Boom Town**__".__ Events of "__**The Christmas Invasion**__" will follow next chapter._


	42. Chapter 42

**Chapter 42**

Harry looked around what passed for a park in inner city London. He'd actually considered apparating in here. The traffic at this time of year was starting to get hectic. But despite being able to fit most of the tech he might need into his not magic, though still dimensionally transcendental bag there were some things that were more practical to put in the boot of a car.

Though apparating was also becoming a little more fraught, not like his house which would be lethal for anyone, but he could understand why places like Henrick's were useful. Or rather had been, now that it had been blown up with alien tech there was a similar issue as his house. Though of course not as bad. There were no really big danger zones for apparition in London, none that could do serious damage.

+-/-+

For now though he was sitting on a bench waiting for his contact.

"Thank you for coming Mr Potter."

"Ms Portman." Harry smiled and turned to look at the woman who'd been suspicious of him when he'd been in Section D.

"I take it Harry has cleared and briefed you on anything we might discover today?" Harry looked up at her.

She looked at him with a cool, verging on cold expression. "I have clearance."

"Goody." Harry said. "Lets walk and talk." He said leaping from the chair.

"You're worried someone might be watching?" She asked slightly curious.

Harry shook his head. "No. But if someone's going to attack us better to be moving than standing still, don't you think?"

"Are you at risk of people shooting at you?" She asked as they began to walk measured steps.

Harry smiled at the woman, she was about his age and had cool eyes that he often had when he looked in the mirror. Still, that wasn't all the time. "On the good days." He said mysteriously with a smile. "So what's Harry being mysterious about?"

He'd received a call from Harry Pearce earlier in the week about signs and signals that had started appearing in whatever it was that Section D monitored. 'Bad Wolf'.

The Blaidd Drwg rift. Blaidd Drwg power plant.

When he'd received the call he'd started looking, it seemed to be everywhere, but no one had noticed it until now.

That was what had intruiged him, and had obviously intrigued Harry Pearce, enough to call him.

"Over here." Jo Portman said gesturing a tarmacked sports area.

Harry followed her through some broken fences and vacant land with various bits of grass trying to grow around it.

"Interesting." Harry said.

"It's weird, it's old but…no one's noticed it until now." Jo said some confusion and difficulty present in her voice as though she couldn't quite describe what she was seeing, or feeling.

"But it's everywhere not just in London but around the world." Harry continued her thoughts as he walked up to it, though careful not to actually walk onto it.

"Yes." She said in a clipped tone. "Is this something to do with your organisation?" She asked.

"Something my organisation deals with, very probably." He paused and looked to her. "And something that UNIT doesn't need to get involved in, despite the global nature of this problem?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

"The concentration of these events is in the United Kingdom."

Harry nodded as he extracted his wand from his pocket and cast a few detection spells near one of the pieces of art.

It could be a magical thing, something like magical performance art, Daphne had mentioned there was such a thing. By "eccentric" witches and wizards sort of like crop circles. Harry had mused at one point that maybe they were the ones creating some of the fads that became popular around the world.

It was perversely amusing to think that the reason people suddenly liked pogo sticks or that a certain song became insanely popular was a manipulation of semiotics by a wizard or witch doing performance art with magic.

Who the audience would be for that he wasn't really sure. There probably wasn't one, that was probably the point.

Portman had remained silent while he cast his spells and hadn't asked any questions, she'd just stayed relaxed but alert looking around at the surrounding buildings.

A cloud of fog materialised from one of his spells for a few moments before disappearing in a shower of magical sparks. It left a slight burnt smell in the air for a moment, like burning sugar.

"There's something like a notice-me-not on here. Like a perception field. Or there was." He mused aloud, he did at least this time have someone to talk to.

"A what?" Jo was immediately alert to his musings.

"Something that stopped most people from noticing it. Like the TARDIS." He said watching her reaction.

"That police box?" She asked immediately.

He smiled a controlled smile. "Yes."

"This though." Harry opened the bag and removed a bulky device with a long aerial on it and then dug around in the bag for a battery pack. It was something he'd managed to extract from one of the Daleks he'd liberated from the UNIT storage facilities he'd found and "visited". Together with some of Whittaker's temporal research he'd managed to build a temporal scanner.

Portability and power was still an issue.

If only Sarah would let him take K9 apart and see what made him tick, or not as was becoming the case. Still she wouldn't let him near that annoying thing. Harry suspected she thought he might not put him back together correctly. Just a bit of personality adjustment for it, that would be all for the metal mutt.

"Should I ask what that is?" Portman asked.

"Only if you want an explanation." Harry said as he looked at the readings on the display. Half the characters were still in Kaled or Skarosian or whatever it was the Daleks used as a language. He didn't have the benefit of the TARDIS's gift of translation, either the TARDIS wasn't around or maybe he'd not been granted it having only travelled with the Doctor on short hops through time and space. He wasn't sure.

He was mostly certain of what the symbols meant. He'd worked out zero and he'd worked out what might be extremely high.

Portman crossed her arms and Harry could sense without looking at her that she was frowning and being impatient. It was all about how she moved her feet. Or at least that was what Daphne informed him was how Hermione showed her displeasure.

"It detects whether this was put here recently." Harry said grinning to himself. It was like the Doctor, having someone around to explain things to.

Actually Harry mused as he stepped around the graffiti it was actually more annoying.

He wished the spy would just bugger off and leave him to it. He could report later to Pearce without Portman hovering around beside him.

The temporal scanner was getting hot, which meant it was working and he'd need to change the battery pack soon. The symbols were also appearing on the screen as he poked it at the ground.

The bitumen was old, relatively speaking but the graffiti was older and newer, probably.

He'd not quite worked out what the symbol in Dalek was 'buggered if I know'.

But he was getting the distinct impression that was what his device was saying.

If he was interpreting it correctly, the graffiti was both older than the bitumen it was painted on, current and over 100 and 90 thousand years old.

"Does this have security implications?" Portman sounded impatient.

"Are there some other terrorists you'd prefer to be out hunting Ms Portman?" Harry asked adopting the tone that Pearce used when he made a sardonic comment.

Harry drew himself up and looked down at Portman. "Because this might have just as much import as any security assets that you might be out and securing." Harry paused looking past her and feeling something. Then a spell was flung out of somewhere just out of sight at them.

It harmlessly collided with a shield that Harry cast, rebounding and exploded into a shower of sparks and energy above them.

"What? What was that?" Everything about Ms Portman changed as she shifted from vaguely annoyed to active and engaged.

"Possibly something to do with this, or perhaps not." Harry grinned manically at her. "It's good either way, people shooting at us."

"Why?"

"It's exciting." She stared at him so he added. "Means we're doing something to annoy someone." Harry said as he looked around.

"What?"

"Shh." Harry said as he looked around. The day was relatively warm for winter, with not too much wind. He could cast anti-apparition wards around here, but he still wanted to conduct some research.

Then he heard and felt it, the pop of apparition, the displacement of air. "A group I think."

Then another spell, from the opposite site of the land they were on. Harry shoved Portman out of the way and tracked the spell and at the last moment, letting his long since used seeker skills cut in jumped out of the way. The spell sailed past losing momentum as it made its way past them and fizzing out.

"This is something to do with your organisation. The _paranormal_." She said pushing herself up off the ground, she'd rolled with Harry's shove rather than falling.

"Something like that. Operating at long range, and relatively good." Harry mused as he opened his bag and replaced his scanning device inside and extracted his bulky magic-proof phone.

"The ambient energy will disable any mobile phone signals for a while." He said by way of an explanation to her.

"Ioan. Yes it seems this might be a shit fight with the Ministry." Harry said as he made the call and paused looking to Portman. "Keep an eye out for anything unusual, shoot to disable." He said nodding to her hip, though it was actually on her back neatly hidden by her jacket where she had her weapon, he didn't think Harry Pearce would have his officers armed for a simple investigation.

"Ah, you're still dealing with that. No, I want to know about Cohort Dow, that investigation is more important. Yes than me facing possible injury or death. Yes, I'll give Judith a call." Harry smiled. "Yes I'm sure she'll find it amusing." Harry said as he ended the call and called another number.

As he was doing so Portman gestured the end of the land they were on, it seemed she'd noticed something. Possiblely the apparition point. "Down there."

"Good. Let's waltz on slowly." Harry said as he dialled a number. "Judith. Yes. Yes, oh good and you were able to purchase it. Oh good." Harry said. "Of course. Yes I know. Yes. I am. Not completely." He said as he tucked the phone back into his bag. "Now Ms Portman, anything you see, hear or feel is covered by all those things you've signed."

"I know."

"Just checking." Harry said looking along the length of the land they were standing on. At the end there a haze forming, like a mirage of heat.

+-/-+

Obviously a charm of some sort, because while the sun was out it was far from being warm enough to create anything more than a mildly pleasant winter's day.

Another spell was flung out from somewhere not from the group ahead, this time Harry had to put up another shield. This time it impacted with some force as they continued walking towards the heat haze slowly.

"Aren't you interested" Jo flinched as another spell was flung at their backs. "At who is shooting at us?"

"Quite." Harry said looking around, not that it'd make any difference. "But I want to give my backup time to get into position." He paused. The shimmering wasn't going away as they got closer to it. "And I want who ever it is that's shooting at us to get as many shots off as they want to."

"Why?" Portman asked, her voice still tense.

"Because whoever it is that's generating the haze ahead." Harry nodded ahead of them. "Aren't shooting at us, maybe can't see us." Harry said as they arrived at the edge of the mirage.

"It's still blurry." Jo said as she reached out Harry shook his head.

"Not until I'm sure what it is." He said aiming his wand at the field. "Probably like a camouflage net." He said as he jabbed his wand at the mirage it went through with no resistance.

"Probably safe." He said in a low voice.

"Probably?" Jo asked with a smile.

Harry shrugged and walked through.

Inside there were wizards and witches standing around tables, it looked like dug up a piece of land and were examining it.

And of course there were people pointing wands at them, though he ignored that part and only dealt with it until someone spoke.

"A muggle." Someone younger than him pointing a wand up him said.

"A wizard." Harry said with sarcastic incredulity and reached forward in a quick move again from his long past seeker days and grabbed the wand out of the wizard's hand. He stared at him in shock. "Give that back!" He demanded.

"Here." He handed it to Portman. "Sometimes I wish people were disciplined." Harry muttered with a sigh.

"Sir, someone's breached the barrier." Said one of the other younger people. "It's Harry Potter!" Harry was sure he recognised the voice or maybe he just recognised the tone.

"Harry?" Asked an older voice from somewhere with the other wizards working in the background. Harry recognised this one.

"Hello Ron." Harry said neutrally, though he didn't put away his wand. Nor did the wizards and witches who were pointing their wands at him. Though the other witches and wizards working did briefly stop.

"What're you doing here mate?" He paused and pulled and puffed himself up. "Um Harry Potter?"

"I investigate this stuff. Hermione not with you?" Harry asked looking around. Ron seemed to go even more red. "I'm in charge here Harry."

"As I see, with all your minions." Harry paused. "Housemates of ours I suppose."

"Nothing wrong with that." Ron started defensively. "Just no _Slytherins_." The younger people around him nodded along with this sentiment.

Harry audibly sighed. "Really? Still?" Harry looked at Ron. "The past is long gone Ron. Draco has gotten past it, I thought you were." Harry shook his head as Ron's face bulged and Harry couldn't help but allow himself a little smile himself as he wondered if Ron might explode.

Which Harry mused was somewhat morbid, especially as his sister had exploded in various bits through various wards in the past. Harry chastised himself briefly for such morbidly amusing thoughts.

"Malfoy." Ron screwed up his face. "You're on first name terms with him?"

"Yes, I'm also on first name terms with my girlfriend who's also a former Slytherin. We are all far beyond Hogwarts." Harry paused to look at all Ron's minions. Harry suspected Ron had hand picked them all. "So are you, the real world is nothing like Hogwarts." He said seriously looking briefly at each of them.

"Harry what are you doing here, who's this?" Ron looked at Portman.

"She's from the security services." Harry said. "I'm here because odd messages turning up around the world and especially around the United Kingdom is something people notice." Harry said and then added. "Well they're noticing it now."

"Oh." Was all Ron said he seemed to deflate slightly.

"And I think you need to have words with your minions about how you conduct an investigation." Harry said seriously to Ron who did not take the suggestion well.

"What Harry? You're the one who walked in through the-" Harry snapped his fingers making some of the younger ones jump. Harry really hoped they weren't going to be on the front lines of anything. Or maybe he was just used to facing down Dark Idiots with amazingly complicated names based on long acronyms.

"He's not talking about that, we were shot at, at least 15 times as we walked out in the open towards your little mirage." Portman said finally speaking up. Harry was glad of the interruption, his little tet-at-tet with Ron could wait for another day.

"You what?" Ron asked looking at him, he briefly managed a glance at Portman. Harry nearly rolled his eyes.

"Us, shot at Ron. That thing where you say words, cast a spell at people, nothing too nasty." Harry paused. "Not that there's much your little squad could do that's nasty" Harry paused for dramatic effect. "for me."

Ron bristled. "I told them to watch for intruders Harry. Defensive measures."

"That includes shooting at muggles?" Harry raised an eyebrow and shook his head, he didn't want to get into another argument with Ron.

Ron started to open his mouth when Harry cut him off. "And don't say they could tell I was a wizard, because unless everyone out there" Harry jabbed a finger backwards to the edge of the area they were within or behind "omnioculars they wouldn't have been able to see much more than figures at first." As Ron paused seemingly considering his response the area they were in was bathed in a red light.

"Spread out, this might be an attack." Ron ordered his minions as he rushed off to the more senior wizards leaving Harry and Portman alone. "Cover all points of the charm." He said rushed away.

"What's going on?" Portman asked quietly seeing Harry was unconcerned.

"My backup it seems has arrived." Harry saw Ron look over at him. Harry waved cheerily.

"Your friend looks annoyed."

"Isn't he just." The red light intensified. "Best cover your eyes." Harry said putting his into his arm. "If I'm guessing correctly my associate has borrowed an industrial scanning laser that was going to be used to investigate sites for the Olympics." Harry said. "You might feel your ears pop."

"Harry! What have you don-" Ron's annoyed shout was cut off by a pained cry.

"That would be why we need to cover our eyes." Portman deadpanned.

Harry hadn't told her the whole truth, the laser was being used for what he said, but it had come via Porton Down and in a way via him as a sort consultant.

It was in being used to take down various alien shields and other forms of disguise used on alien craft. There were any number of alien sites around London and many of them where Olympic venues needed to be built.

As long as you knew what your were pointing it at it could work like a scanner and a disabling weapon.

It had come from UNIT's laser technology in the 1970s, based on their lasers they used against the Krynoid. Except Porton Down had been authorised also during the 70s to begin investigations into using it against _magical_ shields and charms.

That technology was even more flawed though, as the power required was in the order of 'one or two nuclear power plants' and anyone inside the field had a tendency to be reduced to their constituent atoms, or on a good day slush, something to do with forcibly collapsing the magic involved.

Though with the right modulation and power packs it could be rendered sort of safe, as long as it wasn't trying to pull down anything really heavy duty.

Even that research had been pulled and it was only through being brought into closer association with the security agencies that he'd managed to get his hands on some of the more "esoteric" investigations.

Maybe someone had thought that technology that could get through magic was something they didn't want muggles to have in their hands. It was a somewhat worrisome issue, even for him.

Things like the Quidditch World Cup for example needed things in place to stop innocent people wandering in. Though some choices for location and the continual memory modification was somewhat barbaric.

+-/-+

He was confident that any modifications Judith had made to the laser technology to make it work would be removed and the laser returned before anyone knew it had been missing. She was the only one he'd shared these musings and theories with.

+-/-+

Harry carefully opened his eyes and found the cool winter sun beating down on them. Wincing slightly after the dullness of the mirage field they been in and having his eyes shut he tapped Portman on the shoulder.

"Time to leave I think Ms Portman." Harry said in a low tone looking over to Ron and his minions.

"What about them?" She asked wincing as she looked around.

"I'll deal with them, go out to the east side." Harry paused. "Get on the phone to Colin and get him to do a search for a police box. It'll have turned up recently."

Portman opened her mouth to speak but Harry had already turned away.

+-/-+

Harry sighed as he bent down to feel Ron's pulse. There shouldn't be any permanent damage. Certainly not permanent in terms of wizards and magic and healers and things like that.

His pulse was a little fast, but nothing to worry about.

How had it come to this, that he felt that he would be more comfortable sitting down with a pint or more likely a glass of wine with Draco Malfoy than one of his best friends; Ron Weasley? Harry mused as he case a few spells of diagnoses around the crowd of mostly unconscious and beginning to stir people.

Maybe he'd gotten older and more mature, and Ron had just gotten older? Harry shook his head, it wasn't as simple as that.

Maybe it was that himself, Draco and Daphne had shared a lot more as adults. He and Ron had shared many things as children and as teenagers.

Or maybe, Harry thought to himself as he turned to leave maybe there was a bit of Ron and maybe a bit of himself that was never the same since the Tri-Wizard. Trust and consistency. Draco had been moderately consistent, but he'd demonstrated he could change and evolve.

But, Harry thought a part of him, maybe deep down in his mind, maybe he hid it, maybe. Hid that Ron might one day decide to flip again and cast him out, 3 years should have been enough to establish consistency of character for him but when his name had been read out; entered into the Tournament what he'd really, _really_ needed was his friends by his side.

"Ha-rry?" Ron groaned. Harry took that as his time to leave, no doubt he'd be called to account at a later date. He'd rather deal with _his_ superior ie the Minister, rather than Ron being pompous.

+-/-+

"This isn't a standard issue car." Portman said with a smirk.

"Just put the light on the roof." Harry said as he got in to the Exige, referring to the blue light that Portman had removed from the glove box.

+-/-+

It was a short distance from where they were, Colin had managed to find the TARDIS within a quite short amount of time.

Unfortunately they arrived just as it was dematerialising.

Harry looked to Portman and decided he couldn't be arsed giving an explanation.

"Isn't that Mickey Smith?" He mused looking between the green Mini and the large yellow truck. "Your informant?" Harry raised an eyebrow as he and Jo Portman got out.

Harry grabbed his temporal scanner and switched it on. It immediately showed big, very large graphics that even with his little knowledge of Dalek iconography he knew wasn't good. Whatever had happened here with the TARDIS was dangerous, probably lethal. The amount of temporal energy even lingering here was probably not good for the local environment, though it was dissipating.

"I'll deal with Ms Tyler." Harry said as he strode over to the woman who was standing a short ways from Smith.

+-/-+

Harry strode over to Jackie Tyler, mother of Rose Tyler. She who had called the panic line during the last crisis to befall London.

"Hello Ms Tyler."

"Who are you?" She said looking him up and down and then over at Mickey Smith. "Who's that."

"You don't need to worry about here." Harry said stepping around to meet her gaze and stare into her eyes.

"Don't need to…" She murmured.

"Jackie Tyler you will obey me, do you understand?"

"Obey you, I will obey you…" She repeated in a monotone.

"Good. Was the TARDIS just here?" He asked slowly.

"The TARDIS! That Doctor, his TARDIS!" She exclaimed as much as she could. "My daughter, Rose, oh Rose…she said she had to go back. In the future, she said he was there fighting these things." Her eyes were wild. "She said she'd met her dad in the past, it was what he would have done."

Harry shunted that random rambling information away for later. "What were you doing with the truck?" Harry briefly looked away from her, there was a tow rope that seemed to go to where the TARDIS had been. "Was it something in the TARDIS?"

"The TARDIS!" This seemed to resonate with Tyler. "Rose, she said, something inside, she had to get into the TARDIS, something powerful, she had to break in."

A chill ran down Harry's back. Both Magister and the Doctor had told him of the power that was within the TARDIS. And Rose Tyler and her chums had used a big yellow truck to break in.

Rose Tyler. Harry wondered if this was when she died, the Doctor had been reticent to talk about her, when he'd met Martha Jones, when he'd nearly died.

Opening up the power of the TARDIS could be catastrophic, and very probably deadly.

"I see. Now Jackie, who did you get the truck from."

"Rodrigo. Have to get it back soon." She said in a lower monotone.

"Good. Now, when I snap my fingers you will return the truck to him and you will have no memory of speaking to me. You will obey me you understand."

"I understand." She said, then Harry snapped his fingers.

In a somewhat clockwork manner she walked over, disconnecting the chain and then got into the truck and drove away.

"Nice trick." Portman was standing behind him.

"Anything useful out of Smith?"

"Aside from him forgetting to inform us of anything unusual?" She asked looking over at him. He looked even more guilty than when Pearce and he had met him.

"We could always torture him to teach him a lesson." Harry said casually.

"What about you?" She asked.

"Only worrying things." He said looking at his temporal scanner. Where the TARDIS had been had left a distinct scar of energy on the landscape. He was moderately sure it wasn't dangerous. Though he still thought he should call in the military to cordone off the area, he shared these thoughts with Portman.

"Are we at risk?"

Harry gave a vague shrug. "Depends, I wouldn't go dancing on top of that land there." He nodded back towards where the TARDIS had been.

* * *

Later, in December he was, as he'd guessed summoned to the Ministry of Magic.

Upon walking into the Minister's office Harry guessed that he didn't want to hear about how traffic was murder this time of year, even with all his special permissions and everything. Short of driving through London with blues and twos going everything was moving, very slowly.

Of course, he could have apparated in, that would have solved the congestion issue.

But it was heading towards Christmas and that was when something was likely to happen, he'd rather drive around with a boot full of stuff to potentially solve a problem than wander around with a magic bag, which wasn't infinite in size of stuff.

Plus with the various authorities a car made him seem a bit more professional than a magic bag. Even if it was a sports car some of the time.

"Potter." Minister for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt looked annoyed with him. "Our agreement was that-"

Harry cut him off. "I know our agreement and I am not just the special response team when someone picks up my phone. The 'Bad Wolf' phenomena was brought to my attention by the muggle authorities as a possible magic or alien" Kingsley still twitched when he said _alien_. "problem."

Kingsley stared hard at him. "The group that was present was attempting to determine something similar." He said after a long pause.

"And they thought a mirage charm was the best way to avoid detection?"

Kingsley pursed his lips. "That was security decision."

"In the winter," Harry countered and then added. "Albeit on a sunny day."

"Mr Weasley has plenty of experience as I'm sure you know Mr Potter." Kingsley said. "He also has the benefit of his Auror training."

The thinly veiled suggestion was that _he_ did not have that training that Ron has.

"Did his training also include telling his" Harry paused and decided not to call them 'minions' this time. "associates to fire on a muggle?"

Kingsley remained silent.

"I was present with a muggle investigating, several spells were fired at us from a great distance." He paused and gave the Minister a brief smile before returning to seriousness. "While I can applaud their ability to fire a spell at such long distance, with offensive spells like that they shouldn't be firing off. Especially around a muggle housing estate."

"There is still the case of the wizards and witches you assaulted Mr Potter." Kingsley said after some silence between the two. He held up a scroll. "Most were rendered unconscious, some required treatment following the event."

Harry fixed the Minister with a careful look. "Are you quite sure that I was the one who did that."

"You were present and then you departed as Mr Weasley was regaining consciousness."

"That doesn't prove I had anything to do with it. I merely had the sense to leave with the muggle that accompanied me on the investigation."

"I trust the muggle had her memory adjusted from the events." Kingsley asked though his tone implied Harry had already done so.

"Of course." Harry lied smoothly.

"And what of your investigations Mr Potter? Have you discovered something further of this Bad Wolf phenomena that was not discovered by those from my Ministry?"

Harry slightly raised an eyebrow. "You would prefer a verbal report?"

Kingsley nodded. "One less report from you that I must lock away or destroy Potter is all the better."

Harry smirked. "The Bad Wolf phenomena is temporally related."

"Temporally? A time turner?" He asked.

Harry shook his head. "No. I don't have all the information, but whatever happened it seemed to be leading to a certain point when we all started noticing it."

"And now that affect is lessening like a charm that has reached its endpoint and begun to crumble." Kingsley mused.

"Poetic." Harry commented. "But yes. I'm not sure if it was a message or a notice or what it was. It was left through some means that I can't say but was related to time travel. In the cases I examined the message was older than the surrounding materials."

Kingsley nodded. "I have similar reports."

"Interesting." Harry said. He'd like to read those reports but doubted the Minister would let him. The sharing of information from the Ministry's investigations to him wasn't part of their agreement. Especially considering what had happened with them this time.

It would probably be easier just to sneak into the Ministry and steal the reports for himself.

"Unspeakables believe the Bad Wolf samples may assist in producing more time turners." The Shaklebolt added. "The Ministry's supply has been limited for some time."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "As long as you're not giving it to any Hogwarts students to attend classes."

Kingsley didn't respond to his comment.

Harry felt he needed to press it. "Please tell me the Ministry isn't lending out any more time turners Kingsley?" Harry asked a slightly pained tone to his voice.

"Ms Granger's use, while unorthodox did nurture her analytical mind Mr Potter."

Harry resisted the urge to groan, instead he sighed. "Yes. I suppose so." He looked at Kingsley. "The muggles discovered a form of time travel and they tried to use it to turn back the Earth to the time of dinosaurs, so the Ministry using it to let people attend extra classes isn't so bad in comparison."

Shacklebolt looked at him as though he were mad. Harry mused if it was his mention of dinosaurs, time travel or muggles using it that caused that look.

Harry opened his mouth to ask about Ron, but he found himself paused, not really sure what to ask.

In the end he ended his meeting with the Minister assuring him that what had happened with Ron and his minions wouldn't happen again. At least he'd try his hardest.

* * *

In the end he didn't end up inviting Ron and Hermione **and **Draco Malfoy to Christmas lunch.

While he fancied Draco might find it amusing he doubted that Ron, especially in light of recent events would be able to even remotely keep his cool.

He wasn't even sure how he and Ron were.

He'd had a drink with Hermione not long after his meeting with the Minister.

_Flashback…_

"Are you alright?" Harry asked. They were sitting in an old pub in central London that had been renovated into a "gastro-pub" for the trendy business crowd, but it had some nice secluded areas that meant you could discuss anything without danger of being heard.

Hermione laughed a short laugh. "They say couples shouldn't work together." She said taking a long draw of her drink.

Harry remained silent but reached forward and took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

Hermione looked up at him smiling gently. "I tried to be professional, but Ron is…" She trailed off. "Ron."

"So you're working apart now?" Harry asked gently.

"And as soon as we do you run into him Harry!" She shook her head. "And attacked him." She chastised him gently.

Harry held up his hands. "I didn't mean to, but Ron was being." He looked at Hermione with a smile. "Ron."

"He ranted and raved about you." She paused. "And Malfoy. Apparently you're on chatting terms."

"Draco and I have become…" Harry shook his head. "Something."

Hermione smiled. "Who'd have thought."

Harry nodded, taking a sip of his drink.

"We've decided take a short break and not work together unless it's under orders." Hermione said after a long pause.

Harry offered her to have Christmas lunch with himself and Daphne, but she refused. "It's been a year or two since I had lunch with my parents, the last few were with Molly." Hermione shook her head. "Dropping hints about grandchildren."

"Lovely dinner table discussion then." Harry commented.

"Supposedly some of the people we went to Hogwarts with have already started 'creating their families' so Molly says."

It was still a little odd to call her Molly Harry mused. Even though he'd hung out with her brothers.

"What's the matter Harry?" Hermione asked suddenly worried.

"What? Why?"

"You just seemed sad for a moment." She observed with worry.

"Memories of the past. It's nothing Hermione." He said pushing those experiences away.

Hermione gave him one of her serious looks, one of those 'I know you're lying Harry Potter' looks. "You have too many secrets of the past Harry." She paused to take a sip of her own drink. "I hope you're able to share some of them with Daphne."

Harry nodded. "Yes. I can, we have shared some of those secrets. And Draco Malfoy as well." He added as a bit of an after thought.

"House allegiance runs deep with him. Still wary of people from Slytherin." Hermione said shaking her head speaking of Ron again.

"He didn't take kindly to my mentioning of Draco." Harry's tone was mostly amusement.

Hermione exhaled. "That's been part of the problem, working together I've felt like I had to be the negotiator." She looked at him. "Least the Ministry's departments are understanding. Seems like it's an ongoing thing."

"Someone should do a study on how Hogwarts House allegiance affects workplace cohesion in the Ministry." Harry mused.

Hermione stared at him. "You've been attending too many normal government meetings or reading 'muggle'" She said making quotes with her hands. "reports. Do you think the Ministry cares about the psychology or social cohesion?"

"Cares enough to let you and Ron work apart."

Hermione let out a short snort. "They're just diversifying. More 'unknown' and other dangerous stuff out there to investigate, that at least is progressing."

"Maybe you'll be able to explain why they're so reticent in embracing technology." Harry mused.

Hermione shook her head. "One of the many things that is interesting Harry that I'm not paid to look into." She paused and looked at him. "Unless you'd like to fund a side investigation."

"Money grabbing."

Hermione looked at him with wide eyes. "Merely trying to investigate a subject you seem to be interested in Harry Potter." She said far too innocently.

"If you can make them see there's a value in following a certain technology then they'll go with it." Harry observed.

"How do you know that Harry?" Hermione asked focusing on him.

"Just some things." He said vaguely.

Hermione wrinkled her nose at him. "Fine, be mysterious and secretive Harry Potter, see if I care!"

"Good." Harry drained his glass ignoring her annoyed look at him.

_Present…_

He'd accepted the invite from Osric and Agave Greengrass to attend Christmas lunch with them almost reprising their previous year's gathering.

Their house was close to London, but he didn't think, or rather he hoped that any _alien_ activity during Christmas didn't drop onto their doorstep.

+-/-+

He wasn't entirely sure what to expect, the Doctor had been a little bit vague about this Christmas. He'd 'drunk some tea, slept a bit, had a bit of a fight' was all he really remembered the Doctor saying to him.

There were other things, things on the horizon to worry about. Things the Doctor had alluded to though hadn't explained very much in full. He was quite aware that his foreknowledge would soon be running out.

+-/-+

Martha Jones, she was as far as he could gather the last person who travelled with the Doctor whom he'd met who would be present and alive in his upcoming future.

Martha Jones, he remembered her tending to his wounds, helping him. When he was dying in the graveyard.

It felt like a lifetime ago, those long painful hours or it might have been days in the TARDIS as he recovered. Some of it through a drug haze as the pain killers or whatever it was worked their brilliance on him. During those times of unconsciousness and pain he came to know the voices of the Doctor and Martha Jones and the ebb, the hum, the being of the TARDIS as he drifted away from death.

+-/-+

Martha Jones was still training to be a doctor, she was still on Earth and wasn't on any UNIT watch lists. Which meant she hadn't started travelling with the Doctor. Everyone who'd travelled with him had a file somewhere in UNIT.

Contemporarily speaking the Doctor was still travelling with Rose Tyler and Captain Jack Harkness. Which was weird, it meant somewhere they were meeting him at the Tri-Wizard. But Rose was also breaking into the TARDIS with a yellow truck.

That made him worry, the powers of the TARDIS and the time vortex through which it travelled were beyond immense, they were untamed. Only TARDISes could contain them, only they had…Harry didn't have the language to be able to conceptualise it. The Doctor had once told him some tales of the founders of Gallifrey, how they bent black holes to their will and fought great battles across time and space. Those powers were not to be trifled with.

If Rose had come into contact with any of those ancient powers either of the vortex or the heart of the TARDIS it would mean death or more for her. But he also knew that she probably travelled with the Doctor whom Martha travelled with. It lead him to some thoughts, that the Doctor had somehow saved Rose from whatever she'd done.

Maybe he was wrong, the Doctor had been at times vague about the inner workings of the TARDIS, but he had always maintained that its heart needed to be treated with respect. The 'old girl' sometimes needed coaxing, pushing and repairing but at its heart it was a mighty and powerful thing.

Harry exhaled shaking his head. He'd once again brought his E-Type to the Greengrass's Kensington home, it somehow suited it more than his other sports cars with all their synthetic materials. The E-Type was a classy lady and this house fitted in with her perfectly.

+-/-+

That wasn't to say he hadn't packed for the emergency that he knew would follow, even more so than his previous meeting. He knew something big and bag was coming.

As he'd left he'd detected something on his space tracking dishes, he'd locked into UNIT and NASA's deep space tracking networks and there appeared to be something out past Jupiter, or it could have been one of its moons.

There were some internal papers within UNIT that the various destructions of space fleets over the past 40 years was inhibiting their ability to detect alien craft in the solar system.

There had been at least 2 Cyber-Fleets destroyed, plus Mondas' destruction in the 80s. All of that junk was for the most part still flittering around the solar system.

When he'd left he'd hoped it wouldn't be something catastrophic. If it was he thought the Doctor would have mentioned that something drastic would happen aside from some tea drinking and a little bit of a fight.

At least he knew the Doctor would deal with it.

Though like many things he'd been involved in past and present it was all the little things that were outside of the 'main battle area' to borrow a phrase from the military.

For now the only space-going concern for the United Kingdom was Guinevere One. _Why _the British Rocket Group were sending something to Mars was another question entirely, it seemed various governments had passed and forgotten Greyhaven's coupe. But Prime Minister Harriet Jones seemed to be a big supporter of it, and no government really wants to think about a coupe or the deposition of their monarch by an alien Ice Lord.

* * *

"Harry." Daphne said in a calm tone, far too calm for the situation, but then she'd travelled back to the 1970s with him, seen angel statues that can make you time travel and met Captain Jack Harkness.

They had also spent much time together. Naked for a lot of it.

Harry smirked Daphne gave him an odd look. "Sorry. I just had an amusing not relevant thought." Harry shook his head. "It's really rather fascinating."

"Harry?" Osric, Daphne's father called from inside the house. "Your bag is making a noise, I believe your _telephone_ it ringing."

Harry nodded and walked inside nodding to the elder wizard whom he had given a mark 2 magic proof sat-phone it was a partial gift and part of their business arrangement, so he knew what one sounded like when it was ringing.

Walking further into the house he retrieved his phone from his bag he'd set aside explaining to his hosts that he might need it today.

"Don't you have any time off Pearce?" He said as he heard the man on the other end of the phone.

"_The security services never sleeps Mr Potter. I do not need to appraise you of the situation I trust?" _Pearce's tone was calm, though it was mostly always calm.

"No." Harry said as he walked back through the house to the balcony where he had a view of people ready to throw themselves off of buildings. No one in their household seemed like they wanted to do it. "I don't believe this is magically related."

"_You're sure?"_ He asked. "W_e have information of such compulsion being implemented previously._"

Harry raised an eyebrow, he'd never heard of anything on this mass scale, but he didn't say that to Pearce. "Yes. It doesn't have the feel of magic." He said looking over at Daphne who had moved to stand just outside of earshot with him.

"_So this is most definitely an alien event. It seems we will need another cover story." _

"Cover story?" Harry asked.

"_You did not see the television broadcast?"_

"I am, would you believe somewhere without a television." Harry said as Pearce explained the transmission from Guinevere One.

"And which idiot broadcast that _live_?"

"_One of the many questions Mr Potter that will be answered later._ _Do you have any suggestions as to what may be done?_"

"Waiting until it ends is not the sort of answer you're looking for is it?" Harry mused as he walked back inside to gather his bag.

"_No Mr Potter. You are our expert in these matters_."

"I think this falls into UNIT's sphere of coverage." Harry mused. "But I will attempt to discern something. I will call back in 20 minutes. Potter out." He said hanging up.

"Harry? Your associates called?" Agave asked she had cover over to join them on the balcony while he'd been speaking.

"Yes, sort of, not my associates, more people within the same circles. You mentioned last night that there's some other wizards in the area?"

Agave nodded. "I will floo them."

Harry paused. "Tell them I'm coming, I think I'll drive considering what's happening we don't know how it could affect magic. Or even if it does." He said.

+-/-+

It did.

Harry stood on the edge near the edge of the roof. Father, son and aunt were stood on the edge, mother daughter and uncle had tried several things to get them moved.

Side along apparition seemed to work, but once inside they just came back.

Daphne was stood with them keeping them back while he worked as they were by now in almost hysterics. Daphne indicated she knew the son in passing, he worked for Daphne's family business as a navigator on one of their ships.

"Davius? Can you hear me?" Harry asked slowly as he edged around, wishing he had a broom with him at the moment so he could make proper eye contact. "Are you aware?" He asked in an even tone.

Leaning forward he put his ear to the man's chest, the breathing was even, perhaps a little slow.

There were many questions he had and wondered if they could try them all.

Whatever this was it controlled the body and the mind, forcing them to an ledge. But what of the places in the world where there were none. It couldn't be everywhere.

Stalking calmly back to the family behind them he relayed his idea.

"I need you to apparate somewhere that doesn't have a ledge, to the moors or something like that."

"That'll fix him will it Mr Potter?" The uncle whom he hadn't learned his name asked.

Harry shook his head. "I don't know. But I need to start somewhere before we head towards more drastic solutions." Harry said looking over at the group.

"Do you have a broom by any chance?" Harry asked.

"Not…not something…" The mother began. Her daughter shook her head, watching her father with steel in her eyes.

"Astoria has one." Daphne said as she stepped away to apparate.

As the family including the possessed one disapparated together Harry held a breath and waited.

Several minutes passed with nothing happening and then someone popped back onto the roof making those around him, though not Harry jump. Then he walked calmly back to the edge.

"Fascinating." Harry whispered. "And worrying."

"You have a look of wonder on your face Harry, it is not entirely fitting to the situation." Daphne's tone had a slight amused undertone as she handed him broom.

"This is a nice broom." He said sliding his hand along it.

"It's Draco's when he was visiting upon my sister a gift she did not wish for."

Harry made a face. "So I am to ride Draco's broom. Where's Captain Harkness when I need him?"

Pushing off he was now able to really come face to face with the youngest of those on the ledge.

"Davius, are you in there?" Harry asked looking into his eyes. They were…lost. Like he was asleep, or something. It was odd.

"Davius, I want you to listen to my voice, I want you to listen to me and obey me. Do you understand?" Harry said as he shifted position slightly on the broom to look deeper into the man's eyes. There was a lacking in there, but he could still see responses, operation. The body was still functioning. The mind too.

That he had been able to appartate meant something, it meant…that he was still functioning. Able to apparate home from where ever. It was…instinctual.

"Davius. You will obey me. I want you to step away from the ledge."

Davius' lip trembled ever so slightly but he did not move. "Step away from the ledge." Harry repeated.

Nothing happened.

Turning the broom away he landed back on the roof. There was another thing he wished to try.

"An unforgiveable?" They looked at him surprised and concerned, he wondered if it was that proposition or that he Harry Potter was suggesting it.

"It's clear they are being controlled. By what I'm not sure. But if I can force him away from the edge then that would eliminate some things." Harry said. "I will not do this without your consent." He said addressing Davius' mother.

She looked at him for several moments and then shook her head.

Harry nodded. "I understand." Harry said.

"You have another idea?"

"Yes. It is somewhat more dangerous, though I am sure we're up to the task."

+-/-+

Harry was sitting on the broom ready to catch him and others were on the ground below.

It was a theory he had, something Magister had told him of hypnotism.

Extracting information and persuading people to do tasks was one thing, but over riding instinct was something much more tricky. As with everything it could be overcome.

But this, on this scale was impressive. But the people weren't doing anything, aside from standing on the ledge or being forced to stand on the edge, or maybe the idea to stand on the ledge was planted in their minds. He wasn't sure. He did know he wanted to know more when this was over.

"Ready." He called out. "Remember just enough of a push to get him to the edge." He said. Enough that if you wanted you could stop yourself from falling.

"I…I know." Came the still rattled reply.

Harry watched a Davius was pushed, he stumbled and came close to the edge and then self corrected, an instinctual response. Then he repositioned himself back to his original position.

Harry grinned.

+-/-+

"You think it is safe for them to remain there?" Daphne asked as he drove back to her parent's house.

"Safe enough, whatever this is can't make them throw themselves off the edge. It's an instinctual thing."

"So it is not magic." Daphne mused.

"No, but it must be something within of the body or mind. Davius was able to apparate. That's more than instinctual, it requires a thought process."

"Not." Daphne started. "Not all the time. One may apparate to remove oneself from danger, an instinctual response. Like your bouts of childhood accidental magic. A response to danger." She said as he turned a corner.

"Curiouser and curiouser." Harry said as he turned back into the Greengrass's driveway.

As he was extracting his phone to call Pearce it rang.

"Yes?" Harry asked and didn't recognise the voice. "Who is this?" Harry asked. "With the Ministry, oh. Yes." Harry said. "I've done some tests it shouldn't be permanent and it's not life threatening." Harry nodded a smile to Agave and Osric and continued out onto the balcony. "It should all resolve itself so-" The rest of his sentence was cut off as a spaceship flew slowly down through the atmosphere.

"Sonic wave." He said aloud as he felt the pressure difference flood across the city. Whatever it was it was huge and descending far too quickly.

"Oh shit." Harry said. "I'll have to call you back." Ending the call and flinched as windows all around him shattered. He tensed to duck away from the windows he was standing beside and say them flexing as the spacecraft descended.

Then he was joined on the balcony by Daphne and her parents.

"Harry that is-"

"A spacecraft indeed Osric." Harry said reaching out and taking Daphne's hand squeezing it and grinning at him. She smiled back her eyes wandering upwards at the huge rock of a spacecraft that was dropping rapidly towards the city.

"Will it crash Harry?" Agave asked her voice full of cautious tension.

"No, if it were going to it would have by now." He said as his phone started ringing again.

"Intrusive isn't it." Agave mused.

"Less so than a floo." Harry said with a brief smile. "And I can stop the call coming through if I wish. Not today though."

"As you can with a floo Harry." Agave said her gaze still fixed on the spacecraft above London.

"Hello Pearce, I suppose you have not missed the large spacecraft over London?" Harry asked.

"_No Mr Potter I have not. Have you made progress with the other situation. These are linked I would presume?_"

"I think it likely." Harry paused. "It's some form of deep rooted hypnosis, normal body function continues and some instinctual responses too. They won't jump or fall off the edge."

He heard Pearce exhale a breath. "_I sense a but Mr Potter_."

"I can't disable it, not at the moment. It should rectify itself."

"_Is this blind hope or do I presume you know some advanced knowledge of this situation?"_

"Educated guesses mostly." Harry admitted as he wandered away from the balcony and out of earshot of the Greengrasses. "If it does not rectify itself by days' end we will need to look at destroying the spacecraft ourselves." Harry paused. "I'll contact Porton Down and I have one or two things that may be of…" Harry trailed off as looked back into the room. Lying against one of the sofas was the broom he'd been riding earlier.

"_Potter?_"

"I just had a rather stupid idea to gather some intelligence Pearce."

"_Judging by your tone Mr Potter I take it is quite dangerous."_ Pearce's tone was slightly amused.

"No point in living if you're not going to live dangerously some of the time. I'll call you later Pearce." Harry said as he rushed out to the Jag. On the backseat was his small store of magical related things he'd brought with him; namely his invisibility cloak. He'd always wanted to see if it'd work on aliens.

Donning the cloak he rushed back inside and grabbed the broom on his way to the balcony.

"Harry?" Osric looked at him concerned.

"Harry!" Daphne exclaimed and then looked hard at him. "You are about to do something dangerous."

Harry grinned at her. "Yes." Then he kissed her. "Should be fun." He said kicking off towards the clouds.

* * *

The ship was enormous, it appeared to be large asteroid or maybe a small moon carved into a spacecraft.

"Who does that?" He mused aloud against the wind to himself. Flying right up to its edge he put his hand out in front of the rock. It was warm, not hot, but warm like closer to body heat.

+-/-+

Flying around the ship he saw a flat portion that looked like some sort of arena there was what looked like a large door. It looked rather large and the sun was out and shining here. Discounting that he flew around to the side.

Most spacecraft had more than one docking port and he hoped that spacecraft made out of asteroids followed similar design principles. Grinning to himself he found he was right, it was a very narrow, seemingly barely used door. There was enough room to stand.

The controls didn't work when he slapped the shoulder height button.

"I wonder. Will Clarke's Law prevail?" He asked. "_Alohomora_." He said with some force at the door. His eyes went wide as it shifted. Not much, but enough to force himself through.

Slipping through he found himself staring at the TARDIS. And Rose Tyler was wittering on about the "Gelth Confederacy." The only Gelth he knew of was in Dickens' "lost manuscript" lost in the sense that either UNIT or Torchwood had it.

Even though he was hidden by his invisibility cloak and the main alien had his back to him so he kept himself partly obscured behind one of the many rocky outcrops, which could have been computer banks for all he knew.

There were, he could see from here thousands of aliens around on the ship cheering.

Possibly not for Rose he mused.

Rose seemed to be on the verge of a mental breakdown, considering she was mentioning the Daleks with such confidence.

Maybe there were nice Daleks somewhere, they'd finally abandoned their galaxy conquering ways to make tea and Rose Tyler had met some of them.

Harry gave Rose plus one for enthusiasm though confidence was lacking somewhat.

He realised the Prime Minister was standing behind her, it was the first time he'd met her. Well, not met. Been in the same room with her. Which wasn't a room. More of a spaceship-cavern sort of thing.

It probably didn't count Harry mused as he edged his way around.

Then as the man next to the Prime Minister was reading out a translation of the alien Harry felt a chill go down his back as he suddenly understood what the alien was saying. Which begged the question why it hadn't happened before.

"Hello Doctor." Harry whispered to himself. It was the Doctor, the one who had rescued him from the graveyard. He looked…younger somehow. Maybe it was the pyjamas.

As the Doctor walked around the room it became quickly evident to Harry that the Doctor had recently regenerated.

Harry guessed it had been saving Rose's life as she wasn't dead with her essence smeared across the timelines.

He'd wanted to talk about regeneration with the Doctor, and when he'd met Iris Wildthyme he'd broached the subject with her. But according to Iris talking about regeneration was to Time Lords as talking about sex was to humans.

It was nice for the Doctor to confirm his theory of hypnotism or "blood control" as he called it.

From the way the Doctor was acting he definitely matched the description the Brigadier had given when he'd regenerated in front of himself and Sarah. Sarah hadn't really wanted to talk about it. Like losing an old friend she'd said, watching him die and change before her eyes.

He'd not really thought of it like that. Each Doctor, each of his incarnations they each had adventures, each had lives and he'd known all of them, or most of them.

He didn't really think of them ever dying, they were always out there leaving their marks, he was always finding evidence of each of the Doctors' footsteps on history.

Their _death_ their _regeneration_ wasn't the end, they continued and he felt while the end was a fixed point they continued to explore. Just because he had met the incarnation that followed, he didn't think that meant he couldn't meet those that came before again. Maybe. Harry wasn't sure.

During his musings and the Doctor's talking it seemed the Doctor had decided to take the leader of the _Sycorax_ in a duel…for the planet.

As Rose, Mickey, the Prime Minister and unnamed civil servant followed outside side Harry took up the rear following slowly.

Stepping off to the edge he carefully got on his borrowed broom and stepped off the edge maneuvering so he was just hovering in line with the edge of the spaceship.

While he was standing around there invisible there was a chance people around him would notice.

Harry stared wide eyed as the Sycorax guy lopped the Doctor's hand off.

Which was odd. Because when he'd met this Doctor he'd had two hands.

"…first 15 hours of my regeneration cycle…" Harry smiled to himself, so he had guessed correctly.

"Witchcraft." Said the Sycorax as the Doctor regrew his hand.

Harry frowned and wondered if the fact he was able to use magic to gain access to the spacecraft was because these people had magic, or believed in magic enough for it to be a reality. Or that magic worked wherever in the universe he was as long as he had himself.

It was interesting and a question he didn't really feel equipped to answer. The Doctor had been at times vague about magic, but had said in brief and in passing that even Gallifrey had an age of magic and prophecy.

+-/-+

Harry's eyes went wide for a second time again as the Doctor threw whatever the orange thing he was holding at the door control dumping the Sycorax over the edge.

Harry wanted to follow them back in, but it sounded like the spaceship was leaving soon.

Or maybe the Doctor was going to blow it up, maybe he was in that sort of mood. He'd done it to Skaro after all.

+-/-+

Harry sat watching the spacecraft and then had to grip the broom hard it started to generate vortices as its anti-grav drives started up.

Harry dropped his altitude heading back in the vague direction of the Greengrass's house before spinning around so he could fly gently backwards, he wanted to watch the spacecraft leave the atmosphere.

Just to make sure that it would leave. It did, amazingly.

+-/-+

Then, just as he was making it back he saw it. Five beams from a large scale energy weapon combining in the sky. It made his hair stand up on edge the energy rippling through the air.

Who knew what it was doing to London's power supplies.

They combined and a single beam tore through the atmosphere.

He didn't need satellite tracking to know what the target was.

It was amazing how long they, whichever agency was firing it managed to maintain it for, close 15 seconds maybe more of continuous firing. That was some feat.

* * *

"Porton Down's finished analysing the ash." Harry said. He and Pearce were walking down the Thames. "It was from the alien ship. Good work on the cover story by the way. I'm really surprised anyone bought it."

Pearce sniffed. "As am I Mr Potter. There does not appear to be any lasting affects of the 'blood control' though we've had chatter that other agencies think it was an advanced terrorist attack."

"In a way it was. Dispatched by the Prime Minister." Harry said. "Was it Torchwood or UNIT?" He asked Pearce.

"Torchwood I believe." Pearce said watching him.

"They have a rather large amount of power. The Prime Minister shouldn't even know what they're up to. She hasn't even had the magic briefing from what I know." Harry said.

"Is it something you believe should be rectified?" Pearce asked.

"Do you want me to do it, or should we keep the Prime Minister in the dark?" Harry asked in the most casual way one could when discussing deceiving the Prime Minister.

"The Home Secretary is briefed on your organisation's coverage." Pearce said carefully.

Harry nodded as they continued their slow walk down the riverbank.

* * *

_A/N: _

_I so wanted to get this finished and posted before Christmas. I so very nearly did too. Not quite though._

_This chapter underwent a significant rewrite before I even finished it. I began with __**The Christmas Invasion**__ stuff, but it was originally set at Harry's house with Daphne and her parents over at his house. Then he sees Harriet Jones' address on the TV and then goes and has a phone conversation with Harry Pearce whilst looking at stuff on the computer. That was an efficient way to tell the story. _

_Just not very interesting. So I left that behind and wrote the Bad Wolf stuff._

_This allowed me to finally write some proper Ron and Harry interaction, I'm still not sure how well I'm writing Ron. But I'm quite happy with how he appears in this chapter. He's an adult, just still not so mature. I'm channeling the Ron of the epilogue of the DH. Still immature about Slytherins._

_I'm still undecided about Ron and Hermione, they're still in a relationship, a rocky one though. Making them work apart gives me more opportunity to highlight Ron and Hermione. Especially now I've worked out how to write Ron a little better._

_I've previously said in messages that not a lot happens in __**The Christmas Invasion**__. But going back and having a look at it and thinking about it from a perspective of those not the main characters it becomes fairly interesting. _

_That's why I had to rewrite how I'd initially started this chapter. So Harry's again at the Greengrasses for Christmas. And because they don't have a TV Harry doesn't get brought into the action until the blood control starts. _

_When Harry is on the Sycorax ship he gains access through a different door to one the Doctor uses. When he's inside he's either off to the left out of shot or where the camera is and is hiding to the side of an outcrop or something._


	43. Chapter 43

**Chapter 43**

"_I think you should come and sort this out, seems your source has contacted someone else. Shit's about to get complicated Harry." _

That was the message left on his phone while he and Ioan had been checking out some odd temporal readings in central London. Which wasn't odd in themselves, but he'd also got some messages from the Ministry to do with 'time turner warping events'. Which was, he'd been told occasions when time turners functioned irregularly, indicating a potentially time or reality distorting event occurring. He'd added the last bit himself to build on the vague explanations he'd been given by middle management people within the Ministry who seemed determined _not_ to give him a straight answer.

What had happened to cause these events he could barely fathom, even after many hours of searching. He'd found some ideas from what records there were that it could have been the result of a major temporal event like Whittaker's experiments or possible more than one TARDIS arriving, or maybe a malfunctioning TARDIS. At the moment his and Ioan's best answer was 'we don't know'.

There were literally thousands of possibilities. The amount of people, species and whatever else that had, would have, did have time technology the list if he could make one would be too long to check. Plus the Ministry seemed to have been deliberately vague about where these 'events' had happened, some had said it was within London, others had given him reports about it happening in England and others just said 'oh you know…'.

No. No he did not know. Once more dealing with the Ministry he was flirting with killing off a few of them just to make a point. Down that path though, lay lots of wearing of black, minions and generally setting up a government that worked the way he wanted it to.

That seemed like too much work. He also wasn't a megalomaniac.

The investigation of Deffry Vale High School he'd given to Judith, she could handle any officious headmaster. Though Lucas Finch seemed to be a model headmaster. Since he'd taken over the curriculum he'd overhauled all the subjects impressing the school district coordinator. By all accounts it had been a fairly unremarkable school.

That was what the information Section D had provided him had said at least. It had been them that had contacted him. The information to even investigate had come via Mickey Smith. Although they'd been monitoring the school for some time until they'd been contacted by him.

He wasn't sure exactly how long ago Smith had contacted Section D about Deffry Vale, but long enough for them to compile a significant amount of information.

There was something curious; Finch had sacked several teachers and dinner staff when he'd taken over, replacing them with his own sourced staff. Somewhere from Europe had been the suggestion by those dismissed.

But it was his use of a 'special oil' that had got Section D on alert. That seemed to scream _terrorist bio-agent_ _threat_ to them. There was also the more than occasional student disappearances that increased when Finch arrived to consider.

"So what sort of shit is going down Judith?" Harry asked as he sat down on a road-side bench with her. They were around a quarter of a mile down the road from the school.

"Just wait." She said pointing up the road.

Then he saw them, hard to mistake them. The Doctor in his long brown coat, Rose Tyler…dressed as a dinner lady and Mickey Smith.

"Smith doesn't stick around, he sees them off and then goes and hangs out in an internet café." Judith said.

"This doesn't look like shit or fan situation. Though Mickey is being a bit reticent in his information sharing. The Doctor turning up and probably having been summoned by Smith is something he should have been sharing with Section D."

"Should have locked him up somewhere you think?" Judith mused.

"He did push the button that destroyed Downing Street, even if the former Prime Minister told him to."

"She wasn't even Prime Minister at the time." Judith commented. "Just convenient she survived a massacre and the rest out of the city. He's still hanging out for her and him. Wonder which one he gets his jollies thinking about?" Judith asked with a smirk, Harry didn't justify her comment with a response.

Smith had hunched off away from the school, lest he look like some sort of sex pest or something.

"She's the sex pest, more of a prick tease really, keeping him on a leash pinning for her and making the puppy eyes at your friend." Judith commented, intruding into his internal monologue.

"So." Harry turned to look at Judith. "Where's the shit storm?"

Judith smiled with a glad you asked expression. "There's a journalist arriving later today to do a story on the headmaster."

Harry's expression was one of 'so what'. Lucas Finch's improvements at the school had been moderately notable but it wasn't drawing a large amount of attention. Though if it were aliens they wouldn't want attention.

"She has a name." Judith continued, though she seemed to pause deliberately for dramatic effect. "Sarah Jane Smith."

Harry exhaled. "I see."

Judith looked at him ever so slightly at his lack of surprise. "You knew she'd be here." She watched him. "No."

"I knew they'd meet again." Harry paused. "I think Sarah and the Doctor, along with Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith."

"Potential sex pests that they are." Judith added.

"Can handle any aliens or whatever they are without us." Harry said standing up and offering his hand to Judith who ignored it with a sniff.

* * *

"Did you know Harry?" They were sitting in Sarah's lounge room.

"Records indicate Harry Potter's vehicle was present in the vicinity of Deffry Vale High School when you and the Doctor-master were present Mistress." Harry wanted to kick the metal mutt.

He wondered if he could, now that the Doctor had repaired and given K9 a new coat of paint or metal or whatever it was he'd done to it. A good kicking might do that irritating thing some good.

The repairs hadn't improved its personality. It still made Harry want to take a blow torch to the irritating thing.

Sarah looked at him with an accusing look possibly seeing the look he was giving the annoying robot. "There were more things at play than your investigation Sarah." Harry said carefully.

"Your work with the government Harry? I never was comfortable with all that rubbish."

"That's what the Brigadier says of UNIT now you know." Harry sipped his tea as he tried to shift the conversation. "Gone too far into the military not enough intelligence."

"He said that?" Sarah asked surprised.

"I may be paraphrasing." He admitted and he and the Alistair may have been sharing a whiskey or three.

"From my other sources. I've seen you going into Porton Down Harry." She said in a slight accusing tone.

Harry raised his tea cup. "Spying on them, bold Sarah." He took a small sip. "We all work to keep people safe."

"Not spying just watching. You don't know what goes on there Harry they-" Sarah started and Harry cut her off.

"I, as you've said have been in there Sarah." Harry paused and looked at Sarah in the eyes. "UNIT also does plenty of unsavoury things, it also _did_ plenty of unpublicised things."

Sarah nodded and then shook her head. "I'm sorry Harry it's just, seeing the Doctor again, and his assistant. Rose Tyler." The name quirked a smile from her.

"And Mickey Smith, I take it from the lack of communications traffic from him that he's gone off with the Doctor and Tyler?"

Sarah nodded. "Finally decided to go off with the Doctor."

"Not just go with Rose you think?" Harry asked.

"Maybe, but the temptation to go off with the Doctor is a strong one Harry." She said.

"Were you tempted?" Harry asked after a moment.

"Have you been Harry? How many times has the Doctor visited you and you've never…" She trailed off.

Harry thought. "The Doctor's visited, a lot, you know that. I've been in the TARDIS a few times" He paused and then added. "in emergencies. Others have offered." He said carefully and then looked at Sarah. "I've time travelled Sarah, without the Doctor, I've done it. Faced the past. I needed his help getting back. But I did it on my own. The Doctor's my friend, I've known him most of my life. I don't think I could travel, not like you and the…" He paused.

Sarah interjected. "Like the others?" She almost smiled.

"No. I think we'd get in each other's way." Harry chuckled lightly.

"As long as he doesn't travel alone. I think." She paused. "I think he needs to travel with someone."

"Maybe you're right. I knew someone else, another Time Lord, he travelled alone."

"Who?" Sarah leaned forward slightly, waiting for a reply.

"I don't think travelling alone was his downfall, but…" Harry shook his head. "The last time I met him he was changed, completely, more than regeneration something…worse. Still traces of the person I knew but it wasn't him." Harry said as he finished his tea and found it had gone cold.

* * *

"Let's see if Mr Potter's additions to the room will allow us to survive the next 'shift'." Pearce said.  
They had in fact managed to reduce the amount of 'ghosts' that appeared by changing locations, the further up they'd gone there were less appearances of the 'ghosts' which had started appearing a month ago around the world.

"Power on." Harry said from a position at the wall where Ioan was standing. Judith was at street level monitoring their energy scanners there.

In the room with them were representatives from various sections of MI5 and MI6.

Ioan and himself had in fact already sat out a 'ghost shift' as the media had begun to call it and the Post Office Tower seemed to have very few 'ghosts' present during the 'shifts'.

It was a pity hardly any of the tech that he'd left here in the 70s had remained, cleared out by UNIT he assumed when he'd departed as their Esoteric Advisor during his almost year long stint in the 1970s.

It had made sense as a meeting location not just from his past association but it had by far fewer ghosts than any of the suggestions made by people from 5 or 6, and it had the requisite plugs, ports and power to try and combat the ghosts, apparitions or whatever they were.

The hum slowly built and a smell of ozone permeated the room as the energy dampers engaged to full and began the process of slowly burning out, a problem Harry hadn't managed to fix.

"Shift in 4, 3, 2, 1." Ioan counted down.

The man from 6 pulled out a small set of binoculars to look down at the street outside as the 'ghosts' flared into existence and then looked around the room.

"Well, well, well, Mr Potter, it seems you have achieved something. Any chance of this working for any of our other buildings?"

"None whatsoever." Harry said nodding to Ioan who would continue to monitor the power levels while they had their meeting it was one of several he'd started having since this thing had started. He'd also had to have a similar meeting with the Ministry along with the head of the Aurors _and_ Ron _and _Hermione present, there were more scheduled of which he was dreading.

"It's the Post Office Tower's unique design that allows us to shrug off most of the energy signals, the dampners and broad spectrum coherence on the energy waves." Harry said aware he needed to keep the technobabble to a minimum. He paused. "Along with the heavy duty power cables into this place and that it didn't have many of these 'ghosts' to start with."

"And we're no closer to finding _where_ they're coming from?" Pearce asked.

"The government's of no help at the moment, why they got rid of Jones." Someone from another section of 5 shook their head.

"UNIT's being tight lipped, anything they've discovered they're 'unwilling to share at this time', Geneva's still pissed that we destroyed that spacecraft." Said someone 6.

Aside from Pearce Harry didn't know any of these people's names aside from which agency or branch they were from.

It was a little annoying but then considering they were all from intelligence agencies or other sorts of things it was to be expected.

"What of Torchwood? They were the ones who destroyed that little problem for us. Could they assist with this one?" Pearce mused.

Harry wondered that himself. He'd put in a call to Jack Harkness but hadn't had it returned except for a brief email stating the ghosts were playing havoc with the rift. He didn't feel he needed to share this titbit of information with the rest of the group.

"They've been as tight lipped as UNIT. Worse that they consider themselves 'outside the government'." Said a woman with a Scottish accent in an annoyed tone.

"I think we need to continue to take measures to move assets into place should this take a turn and everything goes pear shaped." Harry said after a brief silence.

"How pear shaped do you think these 'ghost shifts' will go Mr Potter?"

Asked someone from MI6.

"Very. How many events like this have resulted in good things happening for us?" Harry asked looking around the table. "The media's treating this as another quirky new thing." Harry's tone turned cynical. "'Look at these ghosts, all the new agers were right'."

There was a few minutes as the various security agencies discussed what Harry had proposed, or what he hadn't proposed. What he'd brought into a discussion involving various security services people. Just the people to have around if you were planning a coup.

"Potter is right. I will authorise extraordinary measures under the 1975 emergency powers acts." Said someone who was from 5 and seemed to have a finger on the pulse of the government or was somewhere between the intelligence agencies and the government. Close to the Home Secretary, closer than others here. "I will make the Home Secretary understand we can't have an indecisive government at times like this."

Harry nodded. "If this does go global and go pear shaped it would be good to know other governments are prepared." He said looking to those from MI6. They didn't really nod, but they seemed to indicate that they might do something or might know something. It was impossibly hard to read the body language of most of the people in the room.

As far as he was aware there wasn't a similar organisation to LPI elsewhere in the world. The United Kingdom was fairly unique for the amount of alien attention it had attracted over the past 50+ years. Additionally how its magical community reacted to it. Although elsewhere in the world, from what Daphne and Hermione had said some magical governments were less of the 'you're a deviant if you think aliens exist' mindset, though some other smaller nations tended to follow the 'Avada Kedavra' first and do nothing later. Shrug their shoulders and hope the idea of aliens went away.

"You know, your suggestion comes close to preparations to overthrow the government." Pearce said an amused tone in his voice. They were the last to leave. Mostly because Harry had the keys to the floor of the Post Office Tower and he had to help Ioan out with the equipment. Though there had been a discussion of leaving it set up, but it was already on the cusp of burning out.

He'd been promised some funds and extra help to kit out the tower for future meetings.

Now he just had to pull it all together and stop it nearly catching on fire all of the time.

"Is the government being at all effectual Mr Pearce? Would they notice if we attempted a revolution?" Ioan asked as they rode the lift down.

"A point." Pearce mused.

"I think if it all goes badly they won't care we prepared and if it doesn't, then they won't know." Harry surmised.

"A very simple way of looking at things Mr Potter."

"With things like this Mr Pearce it's already complicated with too many question marks. We were hoping for magic even if it was a global thing like this would it have been…" Harry trailed off and looked to Ioan.

"Problematic." He said. "It would have been an answer. If Harry's not got any ideas."

"Then it is problematic." Pearce mused as the lift reached the ground floor.

* * *

"I'm not asking you to work with the muggle military." Harry exclaimed.

"Good. Because we won't." Ron stood behind the faceless man, who had a face but Harry hadn't bothered to learn his name. If anything he was being more annoying than K9.

Except with this man he wouldn't have felt much guilt if he killed him. Sliced off his head and then Avada Kedavraed the body just to be sure right here and now.

Harry breathed in deeply and tried to curb the murderous thoughts that went through his mind.

"Ms Granger you and your team are certain that this phenomena is not of magical origin? We have been expanding our research over the past few years." Kingsley asked implying it may be of their doing. The question had already been asked by other senior members of the Ministry, but it seemed that she had to answer it again.

"Very certain Minister. I have been back through the research with the other teams and we've checked and triple checked everything. All teams were down for report writing and preliminary research when the 'ghost shifts' began. There is nothing from my area that could have caused this that I'm aware of." She said looking around the table pausing on Harry and looking to Ron.

Ron didn't have a chair, only people that were _important_ enough to say something had chairs at this emergency meeting. Though Ron was supporting the head of the Aurors, from what he'd heard Ron had somehow managed to get to be third or fourth in command. _How_ was a good question.

Maybe he'd murdered his way to the top position Harry mused to himself.

"I am merely telling you, you all that this appears to be larger than the muggles." Harry had been warned by Kingsley to under no circumstances say the word _alien_ or to allude to anything like that word or even the concept of the word. While he and Kingsley had a sometimes frosty relationship, Harry could see that there were many different powers of the Ministry represented here.

Many of them didn't hide how much they loathed him being here. Even more than their dislike for Hermione.

Though unlike him, she was part of the Ministry, or a related branch and was doing wizardry things, with wizards and wands.

Harry'd walked in with a gun strapped to his thigh, and a not so magic bag filled with things that weren't magical at all. There were some in this room that hated him for that. Or maybe they just hated him in general.

"And." Harry continued as one of the old duffers seemed ready to speak again. "If this goes pear shaped" That expression had become his go to term for whatever the ghosts were. _Unfriendly_ was the general vibe he got off them. "Then this will affect everyone. I've been informed that the ghost shifts penetrate all wizarding structures."

"The further removed from muggle cities the less prevalent the _shifts_ are Mr Potter." Said a middle aged woman from the Department of Magical Transportation.

"That's what the muggles have found also." Harry said, it was also what he'd found, but he wanted to keep his discoveries and information as vague as possible. "But there are still significant ghost shifts in major population centres." Harry paused and mentally cursed himself. That last phrase was one that came from his military discussions. "Large cities and even large towns. Plenty of wizarding families live near muggle towns. If this does turn bad-" Harry was cut off, by Ron.

"Why do you think it is going to go badly Mr Potter?" Ron saying 'Mr Potter' sounded quite odd. Hermione was able to make the term of address her sound quite professional. Ron didn't quite manage it. "There are several cases of ghost rampages in the past where, once they have covered their former territory from coast to coast they disappear and return to their origins."

Ron's boss turned around in his chair and gave Ron and appreciative nod.

Harry didn't actually have a proper answer for that and was most grateful when Hermione came to his rescue.

"The last ghost rampage as it was known occurred following the transition from the Julian to Gregorian calendar when the 2nd of September through to the 14th of September were lost. Research suggests it was this loss that prompted the ghosts to rebel." She paused. "As Mr Weasley will know from the research and history of the rampage it was a violent movement through the country. These recent shifts are the opposite." Hermione paused. "Finally we have been in contact with other governments and wizarding institutions and can find no connection with these ghosts and those rampages of the past."

"Thank you Ms Granger. Most enlightening." Kingsley said and looked back to Harry. "What assistance are you requesting Mr Potter, should things go 'pear shaped' as you suggest?"

Harry breathed in, tasting the musty atmosphere of the room, it wasn't unpleasant, it reminded him of great old bookshops and ancient wood. "If things turn, I suspect it will turn badly. Things on such a global scale are rarely good." Harry looked around the table fixing everyone with a look, making sure they understand. "This doesn't seem to be the work of one person, or rather these ghosts aren't the projection of one person. If it happens, then we will have to confront each ghost." Harry paused. "I recommend lethal force."

This caused some noise around the table.

"You are suggesting the use of an unforgiveable?"

"There are many spells that can be lethal without being unforgivable." Harry replied coolly and mused of half a dozen he could use at this very moment and then saw Hermione give him a look as if to say _'Stop it Harry_' or that could have been just what he wanted to see.

Harry dragged his hands through his hair. The meeting had ended with provisional support, if and only if there was a present and confirmable threat to wizarding lives, and then only if there were three or more wizards present would the wizarding authorities intervene.

"So much for the wizarding human spirit." Harry muttered to himself. Hermione had left with a brief look to him, but it seemed she had further information to discuss elsewhere.

Ron didn't have other information to give or didn't need to stand menacing over the proceedings wherever his boss had gone off to.

"You really think this is bad, like _Voldemort_ bad Harry?" Ron asked as Harry packed away the papers that no one had looked at. Not that there was much to show. Maps of casualty projections done by the security services based on previous alien encounters.

There was some evidence of large amounts of power being used, _not_ that would mean much to the assembled wizards.

He couldn't get any more detailed information than that from his portable scanners as the ghost shifts had an overwhelming affect on most of his scanners so he could only scan in the lead up and then the aftermath of the ghost shifts.

Whatever was using power to generate the shifts was probably, maybe coming from the UK, he'd ascertained that much, actually he hadn't. There was so much ghost shifting going on all he could say for certain was that major population centres had more ghosts than remote locations.

"That was what this meeting was about Ron." Harry answered, exasperated. "Something this global is very likely not good."

"You don't think it'll just go away Harry? Like a bad cold?" Ron asked with a smile.

Harry wished he could be that optimistic. There was no sarcastic optimism in Ron's voice or expression, or body language, Ron unlike the members of Britain's security services was easy to read.

"We can hope" Harry paused as he pushed open the doors and walked the few steps over to hit the button for the lift. "But we should also put on the body armour and expect danger, lest someone stab us in the chest when we're preoccupied."

"That's a very dark way to look at the world Harry, do you think it's that bad?" Ron paused. "And what's body armour, mate?" Ron asked, still trying a little too hard to be jovial. Or maybe it was just Harry's mood at the moment.

Harry was about to answer when the life doors opened. "I hardly think calling a ministry official 'mate' Weasley is professional." Said a voice from within the lift.

Harry couldn't help but smirk slightly as the doors opened revealing him. "Hello Draco." Harry said with a slight smile.

"Potter." Draco nodded to him and stepped to the side to allow him into the lift.

Ron hadn't followed him in. "You coming Ron?" Harry asked as the doors started to close.

"Draco could you?" Harry nodded to the door controls. Malfoy just raised an eyebrow, although he did push the button to keep the doors open.

Ron was staring at him, now he'd become slightly unreadable, or maybe just constipated. "I have work to do." Ron's voice was tightly controlled. "Mr Potter I'll wait for our next meeting." He paused. "Mr Malfoy."

"Good day Mr Weasley." Draco said all too friendly as he pushed the other button to close the doors.

"How odd." Harry mused as the lift shot upwards.

"Not for Weasley." Draco snorted.

"He seemed to be trying to be extra civil to you Draco." Harry said closing his eyes and leaning against the wall. "I'd trade civility for intelligence any day, not that there's much in this Ministry." He exhaled. "What're you doing here Draco?" Harry asked looking over at the other man.

Draco looked at him and seemed to briefly debate about whether or not to lie to him. "Finding out any information about these damn ghosts."

Harry nodded that had come up too in the meeting. Though like the muggles most wizards were happy to fob off the ghost shifts as a weird occurrence. "How about we go to lunch? I could do with a drink. I'll fill you in on what I know, maybe you've got some information that I don't know."

Draco seemed taken aback by his sudden offer, but then chuckled to himself. "My, my, Potter, you must have had a trying time with the Ministry if you are willing to luncheon with me."

"Draco, we have shared many things." Harry paused as the lift doors opened and they walked out. "There's only so many people I can have a moderately honest conversation with."

"Weasley isn't one of them." Draco observed, though there wasn't much malice in the observation.

"Not even remotely." Harry sighed. "Not for a while." Harry mused as he took in the entrance to the Ministry.

"You coming Potter?" Draco asked a short distance away.

"You know you could call me Harry Draco." Harry commented lightly.

"Then people might think we're on passable terms Potter." Draco said as walked to the floos.

Harry took a small handful of floo powder along with Draco. "We wouldn't want that would we Draco, hmm?"

* * *

Harry had been tempted to hire a helicopter to make his way between his house, London and Porton Down. Ultimately though he'd just decided to "upgrade" his Lotus and go the whole hog of the blues and twos in it. Like an undercover police car, though he tended to drive around with more armaments than a van of armed police.

It only helped when he had to wade through the traffic of the nation's capital. Not the security of Porton Down, he was beginning to wish that he had an automatic gate opener for the place.

It was at least on his way to London, sort of.

"We should get you sorted with a more permanent pass Mr Potter."

"Professor, odd to see you out of the office." Harry said seeing Hawksburn outside of the facility she lorded over was a rare sight.

She raised an eyebrow. "We estimate another ghost shift is about to begin shortly."

Harry looked at his watch. "They're getting more frequent."

"Dangerous is what they are Mr Potter, it is why we're pushing ahead with your idea."

His idea had been more of Judith's idea, after his meeting at the Ministry and after his long lunch with Draco he'd met up with Ioan and Judith to debrief and come up with some disaster plans. These including loading up their 'secure parking facility' with all manner of weapons.

Said facility was the underground parking of the Post Office Tower merely due to the fact that he'd wrangled a set of permits to park there due to his continuing work with the security services there.

Their meeting had been in the now closed revolving restaurant, Judith had mentioned something about the history of the tower and its microwave dishes.

The tower had gone through plenty of uses not just its time as WOTAN central and what he'd used it for in the 70s, somewhere in between those two it had been used as part Britain's TV relay network. There was also the use of the dishes and microwave horns in case of nuclear war, that was supposedly why it was round and why it wasn't on most maps until the 80s.

Why Judith had mentioned it he wasn't sure, maybe she'd been involved in British TV or maybe she'd been involved in the Cold War.

Musing on it Harry suspected it was very probably not that she had some interest in British TV and more likely she knew something about Britain's preparations for World War III.

"I see." Harry exhaled. The idea was yet again to use what was left of WOTAN and the TV microwave network and various other sub-systems that still existed that wouldn't blow out, overload or potentially explode when they hooked up 21st century equipment to the aging 20th century architecture to try and find something that their own government refused to assist them in finding.

He'd theorised and provided the MOD and Porton Down with the scanning information he'd gathered from isolating the Post Office Tower from the ghosts. They'd also concluded that it was a combination of its unique shape and the technology inside that helped keep them out.

But by inverting the scanning ratios and backwards engineering some of the tech he'd used they could create a network implementable solution to track and locate the source of the ghost shifts.

"And the risks involved?" Harry mused. With the amount of power and the energies they were pushing through the network was vast and there were dangers.

"Acceptable risk Mr Potter." Professor Hawksburn replied.

"Yes, I thought they might be." Harry continued in a musing tone.

"You wouldn't have brought it to us." Hawksburn said watching him.

Harry tilted his head musing. "Maybe." He turned and looked at her. "Whoever or whatever is generating these ghost shifts will be using in excess of what we'll be using." He paused. "As we and neither the armed forces nor the security services have found any breaches in the power network it means someone must be operating a significant power source somewhere in Britain."

Hawksburn nodded. "That is a valid concern Mr Potter. You believe it's alien?"

"Either that or _another_ nuclear generator in London." Harry paused. "Did UNIT grab that one?"

Hawksburn seemed to pause in thought. "Whittaker's time machine." She nodded. "UNIT I believe took charge. I'm not sure of the generator."

"Probably good to check before we start to blast exotic energy around Britain."

"We will begin with Greater London." Hawksburn stated.

"It's always where the aliens like to turn up isn't it?" Harry quirked a half smile. "Never a folly hidden on the moors. Always right in the centre of London." Harry shook his head.

"As you know Mr Potter, there are plenty of exotic Silverberg events in the highlands every day." She smiled. Harry chuckled.

"Indeed." Harry looked around. "I assume I am to set up a relay control post in the Post Office Tower?" He asked as a siren went off around the facility.

"Ghost shift." Hawksburn said; her voice filled with dread as figures around them materialised. "I assume you have attempted all manner of" She paused seemingly trying to think of an alternative word before saying "spells?"

Harry nodded withdrawing his wand aiming at one of the ghosts that was standing next to a wall and fired a body binding spell at it.

It passed straight through impacting harmlessly with the wall.

"Bugger all effect. Ioan, my colleague" He added. "and I tried a lot of different spells when they first turned up."

Someone wheeled up a trolley behind him. "Professor." He held out a clipboard.

"I hope Mr Potter you've got something larger than this." She said eyeing his sports car with its small-ish boot. "We have a lot of equipment for you."

Harry looked over at his car. "I've been working on that." Harry said mysteriously. Hawksburn paused expecting him to explain further but Harry remained silent.

While he was working with the MOD, Porton Down included and the security services he didn't have to share all of his secrets.

Nor did he have to work with them on any _magical_ things, not that they were interested, not hugely. Their detection of _Silverberg_ energy was enough for them it seemed.

* * *

A few days later found him in the Post Office Tower with Judith preparing to detect the location of the ghost shifts, along with dozens of other people around the greater London area at similar sites. Though none as big as the Post Office Tower.

Ioan he'd instructed to go into central London with a few of his associates that they'd worked with before on the rubbish pile and a few other minor incursions when LPI had needed a bit of extra magical muscle.

Just in case something bad happened.

"I've been feeling it too." Judith said in a worryingly calm tone lacking any mocking.

"The dread like something really bad is about to happen?" Harry asked looking up from the laptop sitting on the desk, it was connected to a spaghetti of cables that linked into the various systems inside the tower. Despite his first assumption when he and Ioan had got here that UNIT or whomever else had removed all the tech he'd brought up here in the 70s he'd actually managed to find some of it on another floor of the Tower. None of it was really helpful to the current crisis, but he made a note of where it was. Though it didn't seem to be being used at the moment. The Tower was one of those government buildings that was more useful as a communications relay rather than putting people in it. Or maybe it was because it was so valuable that they couldn't trust anyone that didn't have amazingly high security clearance inside it.

Which meant only people who were spooks, or dealt with aliens could get inside it.

Though that suited him at the moment, he'd been considering a central London base of operations for LPI. Though the Post Office Tower was a little bit obvious for his tastes.

"You like grand Harry Potter, wouldn't you like to set up in the revolving restaurant? This tower goes so well with your wand." Judith smirked at him. "One huge phallic structure to go with your penis waving, spell shooting…wand." She whispered the last word and laughed at Harry's expression.

"Was I mumbling to myself again Judith?" He asked.

She shook her head. "No, but I know you Harry and this is when it all changes says your buddy in Cardiff, even if he isn't your bed buddy he's been right." Judith commented.

"Hmmm." Harry mused. "This is a little too obvious as a base of operations. I think I'd prefer to find somewhere under a rail bridge or something." He mused. "Low key."

"Low key for Harry Potter?!" She shook her head.

"Can we return to the foreboding feeling?" Harry sighed, he didn't like this deconstructing of his personality by Judith.

"Of course not dear." She patted him on the arm. "This is much more interesting, your obsession with phallic structures. Or maybe it's all wizards. There's the wands, the brooms. Your castles, lots of towers in those." Her eyes went wide and she grinned. "Maybe it's a thing you're drawn to."

"Then shouldn't I be in Cardiff, taking Jack's offer, he lives under a huge phallic structure." Harry paused dramatically. "And he loves to put his own phallus everywhere."

Judith wrinkled her nose. "Now you're just being gauche Harry Potter."

A buzzer went off indicating a ghost shift would soon begin and just after it a phone rang.

It was an old school phone that he'd found in amongst the tech that had been left in the Post Office Tower.

Harry went over to power controls for the various bits of equipment and started powering everything up while Judith answered the phone.

"This is the Post Office Tower, you've called ghost shift central, League of Paranormal Investigations." She said with possibly the most posh accent he had ever heard Judith use. She paused and looked over at Harry. "Yes he's standing ready and waiting for your go ahead." She said.

They were the main point, being the largest of the towers that they'd commandeered but several of the smaller ones would be powering up first as they had less tech that could blow up, burn out or generally fail.

Harry walked back to the laptop where a clock was counting down.

"Ghost shift in 10 seconds." Harry said looking to Judith who was listening on the phone as someone had probably said exactly the same thing.

10 seconds later and…there had been no ghost shift.

Judith raised an eyebrow and passed the phone to Harry.

"Professor." Harry said as the call was passed on to her. "No, I don't think we should call it off. They've had off days before, I think we need to sit and wait, until we engage we're not burning into our equipment." Harry paused. "Agreed." He said putting the phone down. "We're going to stay in standby mode." He went over to where they had their communications table which was basically some radios for their Armed Forces contacts and Ioan.

Keeping the British Army in London had been tricky and the Home Secretary had been reticent to allow a large amount of them into the city without Prime Ministerial authority. Which was difficult because they couldn't get it and they were all flying very close to the quite illegal line.

On paper there were various small groups from the British Army stationed in London for a 'anti-terrorist training' in preparation for the London Olympics. It wasn't too impossible, aside from the fact they wouldn't start training for that for a year or three.

At the moment Harry was still really hoping for a happy, pleasant outcome where it would turn out the ghosts were just visiting because they were bored and not because they wanted to suck out their brains with a fine straw.

It had been an hour or so and then the phone started ringing.

"Harry." Judith said, he voice a tone of worry. "I think the fan is about to encounter shit."

"Tell them we're powering up." Harry said rushing over to the power controls and began to type in the activation sequence into his laptop.

Judith put the phone down and switched on the archaic speaker system that was connected to it and one of the old phone banks and grabbed a set of binoculars they had to keep an eye on the streets below.

"There's a lot more ghosts Harry."

"Get ready to defend us." Harry said as he broke away from the laptop and went back to the other power controls.

Judith like himself had weapons strapped to her thighs but she went and grabbed one of the assault rifles they'd brought up, just in case.

"_Reports coming in from ghosts __worldwide__._"Said Hawksburn on the phone.

"Better have someone dream up a cover story." Harry mused. "Data's coming in."

"_We're getting it on our end. The energy levels are off the scale, higher than anything from your records Mr Potter._"

Harry felt chills go down his back. The amount of power wasn't pulling down, it was increasing, he could smell an overload beginning in the systems here and felt around the fire extinguisher and didn't find it near him. "Continue, whatever this is" Harry paused. "I think it's big and dangerous." He said running over and grabbing the emergency box of power packs he'd prepared and plugged the non-standard plug into the Post Office Tower's systems, something behind him exploded and the humming and the smell of burning went up several notches.

"_What did you do Potter we've registered a massive increase in power?_"

"Emergency Power." Harry called. "Narrow it down before whatever happens, happens."

"_London, East London." _There was a noise of metal footsteps.

"Harry." Judith said he voice oddly calm. That was worrying. "The ghosts, they're becoming figures."

Harry practically ran the short distance between the table and the windows and grabbed the binoculars from Judith.

"Oh. Fuck." Harry said as the figures materialised. In the background the phone was still speaking.

"_Location triangulated. Canary Wharf, repeat, Canary…"_ Then the phone went dead.

"Harry" Judith took back the binoculars. "Are they…"

"They're different from Mondas' appearance and ones UNIT faced but yes." Harry paused as the dread and panic set in. "Cybermen."

And then one stepped our of the lift.

Harry fired the a killing curse at it.

It didn't work.

"Of course it doesn't work." Harry muttered to himself as he dived out of the way as a laser popped up from its arm.

Judith started firing.

Harry leapt back up firing a crushing curse at the Cyberman, which did do something. He fired another and another and then it collapsed gurgling as it did.

"We need to get to Canary Wharf." Harry said to Judith as he stepped around the Cyberman's body. To get to the radios.

"This is Raven to all units, target is Canary Wharf. Repeat. This is Raven, target is Canary Wharf. Hostile aliens. Ghosts are hostile. Use extreme force. Hostiles have lasers on arms. Raven out." It was at that point that the scanning equipment overloaded.

Judith was already over by the equipment banks aiming a fire extinguisher at the banks and then met him at the lift.

"Going down." Harry said as they stepped in.

"You flirt." Judith said as she handed him the other assault rifle they'd brought up as he pushed the button for the basement.

* * *

"…_But you need not fear. Cybermen will remove fear. Cybermen will remove sex and class and colour and creed. You will become identical. You will become like us._"

"Well." Harry said calmly as the gate to the underground car park opened slowly. "This is going to be fun." He looked in the rear view mirror. Judith was in the Land Rover Defender. It held the bulk of their heavy weapons. But also had a bunch of tech that he didn't use in the Post Office Tower and some potions _just in case_ Ioan and he had brewed up.

In the expanded boot of his Lotus Exige there were more weapons, just in case they needed to split up or took different routes.

"_You know I should worry that you're probably excited by this Harry._" Judith's voice came over the radio he had in the car.

"Official communication only Judith thanks." Harry said, though he couldn't help his sense of ambivalence. Of worry and excitement, plus a bit of panic, a small part of his head also mused on Daphne. But she should hopefully be on a ship somewhere between here and America, the ghosts, the Cybermen didn't seem to pop up on ships or on aircraft.

So hopefully any aircraft that was in the air at the moment could circle and sit out this…this invasion.

As long as it didn't last too long, though at the moment he didn't know how he was going to end this.

Switching on the blues and twos, the concealed lights and sirens he pulled out of the car park and found himself in a burgeoning war zone.

"Fantastic." Harry mused as he put his foot down, glancing in the rear view mirror he looked and could see Judith managing to keep up with him. He wasn't all that worried, but he did want to check.

Getting from the Post Office Tower to Canary Wharf at the best of times took half an hour.

This wasn't the best, people or rather people who'd had all their emotions stripped out and converted were shooting at him.

The Lotus people were going to have some fun repairing the body panels on the Exige when he was done with this.

Least it wasn't the Jag.

Changing gear he swerved around a group of Cybermen and turned a corner at a speed that was at least twice what was sign posted. The tyres squealed on the road that was littered with remnants of an explosion. Harry cringed as he swerved again to go around a group of Cybermen that seemed to be taking up firing positions on him, mounting the curb he was sure he heard bits of the front body panels break off.

"_That really is the most impractical car for invasions Harry_." How Judith could mock while doing evasive driving he wasn't sure.

Grabbing the radio Harry hit the button. "Top Gear has yet to do a 'what car is best for when aliens invade'."

"_I'm driving it._" Came her reply.

Harry grinned and then found himself driving towards a dead end created by a destroyed car with only a little laneway.

Cringing he pulled the handbrake and executed a tight handbrake turn and cringed again as he managed to take out both of the wing mirrors.

"Marvellous."

Elsewhere in London Ioan was discovering that these Cybermen were harder to kill than the couple they'd encountered in the past.

They also didn't have any Cybermats around them, so small mercies.

"Shattering spells, we need to destroy them, killing them's a bonus." He grunted to the wizards he'd collected. They'd heard Harry's radio call but with all the alien technology around them he didn't want to risk apparating. If any of them splinched now there's be no saving them, much like some of the Ministry idiots who'd apparated in when this began to stop them from doing magic in the presence of muggles.

They'd obviously not attended Harry's meetings.

He'd killed the pools of gloop that had somehow survived the apparition, there was no unsplinching them.

They did have some brooms each of them were carrying one inside an bottomless bag, however by flying to Canary Wharf that would most certainly add another dimension of danger for them.

He'd made the decision to make a push towards the Tower of London, it was defendable and they could re-group there. He knew for a fact some wizards worked in the Royal Armouries. Maybe they had a relic or two that would be useful in the current crisis.

Then he heard the roar of an engine and for a moment he thought it was Harry, but it wasn't. It was just as good; the Army had arrived.

Going down the Limehouse Link tunnel was a bad idea, especially as it had Cybermen guarding the entrance. Shooting at anything that approached. Harry included. Several individual bits of laser fire sailing through the windscreen with some grazing Harry's extremities.

There was fortunately the appropriately named Narrow Street that ran parallel with the river. Harry only knew about it because he and Daphne had walked along various bits of the river after lunches or nights out, her business after all was logistics of moving stuff by sea, and other means as her family's business developed.

"_And here I thought you were going to drive through the fence."_ Judith commented as he shattered the fence with a quick spell as they drove through.

Not that it would have mattered much, he suspected he'd need to replace a majority of the body panels on his Lotus. There was also a worrying engine temperature light that kept on flashing on as he turned a corner and the oil temperature was also quite high.

As he swerved around and Judith drove through another patrol of Cybermen he took a brief few seconds to wonder if he should have Q-branched his car up, put some rocket launchers in.

It would have been useful, and very clichéd.

Coming onto Westferry Road he slammed on the brakes as he came face to face with a Cybermen and Army battle.

"Seems we stop here." Harry said as he ran around to the boot retrieving his weapons and other things as Judith pulled up beside him.

"Start firing mortars." Harry ordered.

After they'd fired off a good five one of the army men ran over.

"Radio contact's sparse sir, Potter?" He addressed Harry.

Harry nodded. "Status Sergeant?"

"We're holding them back, low on ammo." He shook his head. "Briefings didn't say invasion."

Harry just nodded, they hadn't known exactly _what_ the Cybermen were when they were ghosts, invasion was just one of the possibilities. "Judith get the Defender up to their lines."

"No sir, keep your vehicle here, we need a defensive perimeter." He looked between Harry's car and the Defender. "You can't have enough to re-supply our squad sir."

Harry smiled. "You'd be surprised Sergeant. Let's push forward before it gets worse."

"How much worse can it get?" he asked.

Judith groaned. "Never ask that question when there's aliens around squaddie." She said as she fired another mortar.

And then it got worse.

"Things have become problematic." Harry mused. "Try the RAF again." He barked.

They were close enough to Canary Wharf that they were inside whatever radio jamming that meant radio signals could get out and beyond a line of sight. It seemed to be a sort of 'eye of the storm' sort of effect.

* * *

Daleks.

Millions of them. They'd halved the amount of army men they'd started with, but they could see the tower they were aiming for.

"Fighters five minutes in-bound." Reported a comms man.

"Take cover, we're getting nowhere and dead with both of them around." Harry shouted.

They were within visual range of the tower. There was just the square in front of the tower to make it across. Unfortunately the Cybermen had also worked out that this was the main approach.

With the Daleks added to the mix raining death down from above it was becoming a quick way to die.

According to Judith they were down to 3 and a half platoons, from when she and Harry had first encountered them there'd been near 5.

They'd thrown themselves behind what was left of the shrubbery and the holes in that had been blown out by mortar fire and grenades. All the while being shot at.

Harry and Judith were in one such hole along with 4 of the British Army's finest.

It was at this moment as Daleks roared overhead wreaking destruction that Judith, extremely calmly asked Harry a question he'd not really considered.

"Is this the Dalek invasion of Earth then?" She asked. The soldiers looked between them.

Harry had his bag open for the soldiers to go through they seemed to have little problem with an expanding bag but paused at Judith's calm question.

"Ian and Barbra said that happened in the 22nd century" Harry answered and then added. "Probably. No saucers, so maybe not." He said in an uncertain tone.

"Where's that air support Corporal?" Harry barked across to the other hole where the radio operator was.

"Three minutes in-bound sir, they're encountering heavy resistance." He shouted back.

Then the Cybermen started to shoot at them again.

"They don't like us talkin' sir." Said one of the soldiers crouched in the hole with them.

"Like is debatable Private." Judith said peering over the edge. "These aren't like the ones we've fought before Harry."

"No." Harry grimaced. The adrenalin was slowly wearing off and he could feel the laser burns on his shoulder and forearm he'd picked up whilst driving and lasers had shot various holes in his windscreen. At the time he was glad they hadn't gone through to the engine. Instead they'd hit his meaty flesh.

Which had been fine while things were exciting.

"Dangerous." Judith countered, intruding into his thoughts.

"Yes. Dangerous." Harry said softly. Not exciting, or exciting and dangerous.

"Have you found the armour piercing rounds?" Harry said looking back to the soldiers who'd been going through his bag, they'd also found his potions.

They were mostly offensive a few restoratives and other things for when the shit hit the fan and took the iceberg with it.

They hadn't got there yet.

"We need to get into that tower." Judith repeated the obvious. "Time for something dangerous." She said looking at the collection of potions that Harry was holding.

Especially the collection of red ones that held Ioan and Harry's hand writing, something he'd found of the books he'd used while in the 70s on potion making. This one which he and Ioan had bottled into supremely expensive bottles held a potion for making glass, supposedly to be used when a fire proved too volatile.

"What's the melting point of the metal those Cybermen are made out of I wonder?" Harry asked looking to the opposing forces of Cybermen ahead of them.

It was too far to chuck the bottles, he was guiding one of the bottles and passed two others to the squaddies, well he'd passed it to Judith and she'd done the analogies.

Harry assumed it was something along the lines of 'if you drop this you'll boil alive'.

"From a feather to this." Harry said and wondered for a moment where Hermione was and then pushed that thought out of his head, he couldn't have other thoughts on his mind at the moment. At the moment he had to concentrate on this battle and the men and women who were with him.

The Cybermen didn't see the little floating bottle until it dropped shattering onto the ground, they'd timed it perfectly as the soldiers chucked the other two.

What he hadn't been prepared for was the heat wave throughout the square.

There was also the sounds, the screams of the Cybermen as their bodies literally melted into puddles of hot metal on the ground.

Harry assumed Judith was asking how long but he could only see her mouth move as a firestorm lashed out around them.

"A few minutes." He shouted over the inferno that they'd let out. The actual focus of the potion was limited, or should have been the wind and firestorm around them he assumed was the interaction of the three being used. Or maybe it was the Cybermen's power source, he wasn't sure.

Squinting he could see the plants that the others had been using as cover wilting.

"Move out!" Harry shouted as the screams became gurgles and then nothing. "If we encounter any Daleks aim for the eye on the top of the dome." Harry said as he found the platoons of soldiers forming around himself and Judith.

As they got to the entrance of the building all the lights seemed to dim and something began to happen in the sky.

Gazing up it looked to Harry that someone had turned on a vacuum cleaner; sucking all the Daleks _and_ the Cybermen towards the top floor of the tower.

"Any humans, tie them up, detain them." Harry ordered; he had found himself in the position of being in command. "We need to get up to the top floors." He spared a final look up as it was becoming a stream of Daleks pouring into the building.

He just hoped it wouldn't explode, that would bring the problematic situation to new levels of danger and annoyingness.

"Anything non-human kill it." He said finally as they stormed into the building.

They had barely made it in and they were surrounded with bodies, most of them human, a handful were Cybermen. Tellingly there were no shells of Daleks.

"Harry…" Judith gestured towards the wall.

Harry took the briefest of moments to glance at the wall. "Oh." He said. "That should have been obvious." He said looking at the logo and name of the organisation that had wrought destruction and death across the nation's capital. The organisation that would do its all for "queen and country", including it seemed letting two genocidal races out across the country's heart.

"One genocidal. The other wants to rip out our soul." Judith said, though Harry assumed it was to herself rather than her penetrating his internal musing.

"Secure this floor and the lower vehicle entry floors." Harry barked. "You three with us." Harry said to three of the men who had been with him and Judith in the mortar crater minutes earlier.

They made their way carefully to the lifts.

"Is it safe sir to take the lifts?" A private asked as something exploded in the upper floors and the building rumbled.

"Security and speed for the moment trumps safety." Harry said as he walked in and punched the number.

Half way up one of the soldiers radioed and reported a man in a brown suit who rushed into an "old police box" who disregarded warnings from them.

"Let him go. He's" Harry was about to say a non-combatant but stopped. "He's unstoppable." He finally said less than a moment later as the life continued its rush to the top floors.

"That's something of a disappointment." Harry said as they found the centre of the damage and destruction.

It was a tall white wall, the walls either side were braced and there were two leavers on either side.

It was quite weird.

"Sir, should we–" One of the soldiers started Judith cut him off.

"No. There's–" She was then cut off by Harry.

"Something around here, probably dangerous. The Cybermen don't die easily. The Daleks should be gone. They don't do quiet very well." Harry said as they looked out the window across London. Rooftops were burning, the roads were blackened and scorched. He could hear now the sirens of ambulances rushing out. Looking out the skies were clear except…He stepped back his wand out. The soldiers beside him reacted as well; reading their weapons.

Then the figure became bigger, and came to a hover in front of them.

"Ioan." Harry was relieved to see him and stepped aside to let him fly in.

"Thought you might need a hand." He said.

"Where-" Harry started.

"Royal Armouries. Seemed like they, they were Cybermen right?" Ioan asked but continued. "Different but Cybermen. They wanted something in the Tower." Ioan explained, Harry raised an eyebrow and looked to Judith who also seemed surprised.

"I wonder what." Harry mused.

"I left the others there to clear up and secure." Ioan said and then added looking at the white wall that had so commanded Harry's attention. "What's that?"

"Just what I was trying to figure out." Harry said as he turned to walk towards it. The wall; the end of this odd corridor that wasn't, with computers leading towards it, it felt like it should be something. But wasn't. It was like the corridors at Hogwarts, some of them lead to a dead end, but you knew by some sort of architectural cue that it was a dead end.

This didn't, wasn't, hadn't been. There was the intention in the room for this to be 'something'.

Leaning forward, his cheek almost against the cold hard wall he smelt it.

The smell of rage, of ancient ice and the storm raging like the sun. It reminded him of something beyond old, someone full of passion and distress. Just the briefest smells, but one that seemed larger than the universe.

It was like being caught and catapulted back in time, back to being rescued from Voldemort's clutches and being in the TARDIS and a man timeless yet always changing watching over him as he slipped away from death's clutches.

Then the noise of his and the other's radios ripped him back to the present.

Apparently there were military units inbound, _not_ British armed forces.

They'd left the three soldiers to guard but _not_ explore at the top floor. Exploring was likely to get people rendered dead or something very quickly.

According to Judith there remained a lot of danger in the building. Though she wouldn't elaborate any more than that.

Arriving back down on the lower ground floor, where the vehicles were supposedly coming there was a difference, while the bodies hadn't been moved sheets had been placed over the bodies. The most senior of the platoon's soldiers was waiting for him.

"Report." Harry demanded, Judith and Ioan fell in behind him.

"4 troop carriers sir, and a command vehicle approaching." He reported as they walked to the mostly destroyed entrance.

Harry drew inspiration from the Brigadier as he shouted / ordered. "Defensive positions."

"They have UNIT plates sir." The solider. The Sergeant Harry corrected himself as he took a few moments to look at the man's stripes.

"And UNIT will want to crash in here. Sergeant." Harry said walking out beyond the line of troops and looked back to Ioan and Judith. "I may need backup." He said in a quieter tone.

And then several UNIT troops pulled up and tried to storm in.

"STOP!" Harry roared. "This building is under the control of the British Security Services." Which was not the most inspiring of things to say and certainly didn't seem to give the UNIT troops any pause for thought. "You will stand down!" Harry said drawing his wand waving it in a long arc at the UNIT troops. "Or I and my troops will defend this building." Harry continued in a loud firm voice and for the briefest moments questioned if he was doing the right thing. There was far too much technology in here for UNIT to get its hands on. UNIT had grown into an organisation he didn't recognise sometimes. Plus this was Torchwood's mess, and by extension the British Government's mess and he did not want UNIT storming in taking it over. His thinking on this matter also reflected that of the feelings of the security services and what the Home Secretary had said to him. LPI was part of that, it was funded in part by the British Government and Ministry of Magic and he needed to stand by those organisations that he worked with.

Then there was a slam of a door and a Colonel walked up to face him.

"Colonel Alan Mace. UNIT. Who are you?" Colonel Mace asked looking down at Harry's wand.

"Harry Potter. LPI." Harry replied calmly.

"What?" He looked at him.

"League of Paranormal Investigations." Harry clarified and paused to reach into his jacket pocket and pull out his security identification as he continued and didn't let Colonel Mace speak. "This site is under my command, you will withdraw your troops Colonel Mace. The army is in control here."

"Mr Potter." Mace started barely looking at his security identification. "I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation." He said stepping back and nodding to whoever was leading the UNIT troops.

"I will give the order to fire if your troops approach." Harry said stepping back from Mace.

"You don't have the authority Mr Potter." Mace gave some motion to his second in command who ordered his troops forward.

"Stupefy!" Harry said, though didn't shout. The spell his the lead soldier, making him crumple to the ground.

And then several, more than 30 UNIT troops' guns were trained on him, he heard the not so reassuring clicks of multiple safeties clicking off. Followed by the Army's soldiers pointing their guns at the UNIT troops.

"Potter!" Mace shouted and pointed his own weapon at him.

Harry fought the desire to say something about all the guns being pointed at him. "He's stunned Colonel." Harry said and paused, aiming a spell at the soldier to revive him.

"We are here to maintain structural order under the UN agreements –" Mace started. Harry cut him off before he could quote agreements at him.

"And where was UNIT during the fire fight?" Harry asked in a lower tone. "When my troops and I were fighting our way through the streets? You arrived remarkably quickly, especially with the roads in such disarray. How did you manage that Colonel Mace?" Harry asked watching the Colonel.

"Operational procedures state-" Mace started.

"In my UNIT days we went in and fought the enemy, protecting humanity, no matter how far it takes." Harry said quoting something in the UNIT manual.

This seemed to annoy Mace. "Who was your commanding officer Potter?" He hadn't holstered his weapon.

"Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart." Harry said calmly. He didn't mean to name drop but he did want to diffuse the situation. Of course if further questions were asked about _when_ he'd served with UNIT things would get complicated.

Not that things weren't complicated at the moment. He suspected he was close to, if not already had caused an 'international incident'. Shooting a UNIT soldier, even stunning him wasn't likely to go unnoticed.

Mace opened his mouth to reply but seemed to reconsider. "We will withdraw to central London to assist the emergency services with the cleanup of any hostiles." He finally said as he holstered his weapon. Then he gave his orders to his troops and got back in his vehicle.

As he did so he gave Harry a hard look.

Harry returned the look. Mace wasn't at all imposing.

Then as fast as they'd arrived the UNIT troops has left.

It wasn't until they were out of sight than Harry gave the order to stand down to the army troops around him.

"You really know how to make friends don't you Harry?" Ioan shook his head.

"You can never have enough enemies." Harry replied cheerily.

"I'll put that into my book of great Harry Potter quotes." Judith commented.

* * *

It was still only hours after the attack, Harry was found by Judith and Ioan on the top floor looking at some of the shattered glass.

"Playing while everyone else is cataloguing and killing things? Tut, tut Harry." Judith said sitting on one of the tables while Ioan leaned against the wall watching Harry.

"What've you worked out Harry?" He asked a slightly worried tone to his voice.

Harry looked up raising his eyebrow slightly in amusement. "Torchwood, they've written their name everywhere." Harry paused to move the shards around with his foot. "Magister, he liked to use different names to taunt UNIT." Harry said, thinking back to his own UNIT time. "I should have realised that wizards would be the same with their names and groups." Harry said as he gestured the shards of glass that he'd been pushing around with his foot.

Out of the shards of glass, out of TORCHWOOD another name had been created, that the three of them had been working to discover its origins.

COHORT DOW.

* * *

_A/N:_

_Like the last chapter the hardest thing about this was working out how to tell Harry's story without it getting in the way of the Doctor's story and other events._

_With **School Reunion** there are just too many characters there already and it would have spoilt things to try and insert Harry in during that. I like writing Harry and Sarah just sitting having a cup of tea together._

_In **Army of Ghosts** fortunately Jackie tells the Doctor and Rose the ghosts have been around for a few months. So that gives some time for Harry to investigate._

_Unfortunately Harry can't just solve the ghost problem and be done with it as it needs the Doctor's participation._

_So I've had to keep some things a bit mysterious and put road blocks in the way of Harry (and the security services) from discovering it's Torchwood that's doing it._

_So I am imagining that the government must know something of Torchwood, even if they don't know what they do (or pretend to not know what they do) they must be keeping it from everything._

_As Hartman says the ghost shifts are about finding energy so that the UK can be independent energy wise. Which is one of those themes that kept coming up in the 70s and 80s Doctor Who and is a theme that kept coming up in Spooks. So it's not a huge stretch that the government would make secret anything about Torchwood, based on the promise of limitless energy._

_Harry's interaction with UNIT may seem somewhat antagonistic, but Harry's organisation is linked in with the security services and the armed forces. So Harry has to be in with one group of people and it's where he is. Not with UNIT._

_Daleks. The Daleks don't need to be in this story; **Doomsday** could have been fine with just the Cybermen. Outside of Torchwood Tower the Daleks don't do a lot (just exterminate a few people), nothing much that can impact Harry. They also don't become a part of the story for everyone outside until almost three quarters of the way through the story. Which is why Harry gets to see them but can't really do anything about them._

_One thing I keep forgetting what writing stuff in London and getting characters around London is that it's not laid out like a grid. Fortunately Google furnished me with a map and the time it would take Harry to get from the Post Office Tower to Canary Wharf ties in well with the running time of the episode._

_Finally. Cohort Dow. It is a fairly 'wizardy' sort of name, so hopefully I managed to insert it in without anyone noticing what it was in the past chapters. More to come on Cohort Dow in the future._


	44. Chapter 44

**Chapter 44**

A garden party. Harry tied the tie he had, then frowned in the mirror and re-tied it. Then frowned again and removed it completely and shuffled off the jacket Daphne had suggested and found another in his cupboard.

It had bullet holes in the back, but aside from that it was a nice jacket, he'd had it tailored and everything.

It was just a pity that during that particular investigation they'd been shot at.

Ioan had pointed out that technically they weren't bullet holes as they'd been fired from a musket.

Held by magically animated Yetis.

Harry frowned at the figure in the mirror.

A garden party.

Nothing brings together the wizarding folk than surviving the end of the world.

_Earlier that week…_

"A garden party?" Harry stared at Daphne.

Daphne looked back at Harry amused at his exclaim.

They were meeting in London, again. It had been almost a week and a half and Torchwood One had barely had its surface scratched or secrets uncovered.

Most of the said secrets were being taken by the Ministry of Defence, they'd hold onto them. He'd spent five days out of that time in discussion with bits of the Ministry of Defence and the upper echelons of the security services to make certain that information and equipment would go where it needed to go.

It seemed Torchwood had been keeping secrets, technology and a gigantic truckload of "other" in their tower. More so than the other Torchwoods he'd been to.

_Even earlier in the week…_

"It cannot be a coincidence that 'Cohort Dow' is an anagram of Torchwood." Ioan said. He was with Harry and Judith as they inspected the items that had been marked as 'other' by those from Porton Down and other Ministry of Defence facilities.

Anything that they classified as requiring their special attention would be sent off to a different storage facility that LPI had jurisdiction over.

It was still a gigantic task and Ioan was glad that they were all on the same side.

UNIT had still tried to swarm in at least twice since the 'restoration of normality' or since London stopped burning with fires and debris of alien attacks.

"No." Harry said as he tapped his wand against a thing that was humming. "I feel like I should have seen it, should have seen that." He moved on. "Especially now, seeing what Torchwood One has been getting up to."

"A lot different to sex up everything excluding Weevils Captain Jack Harkness and his wacky band of mates." Judith tapped Harry on the shoulder and pulled Ioan by the hand down through a row of odd shaped things.

Ioan looked to Harry who shrugged as they followed Judith. "Another Felix candidate." Judith said gesturing to some small squat.

Felix was a code word for their magic bags, named after the eponymous cat.

Ioan felt the same as Harry on this matter, even though Harry had worked closely with the MOD there were still some things he felt more comfortable handling themselves, without passing it through the MOD's hands first.

Just in case of course.

As Judith and Harry had said the government was still in some disarray. Still functioning, but less capable they were now rushing headlong towards an election.

Before Christmas it was suggested in the papers that the election date would be set. Not that, Ioan had mentioned to his wife, many wizards would actually care who was being elected in the muggle elections. Vikings or Saxons could be invading the country and taking over government and a lot of wizards wouldn't notice the difference.

Even after all of this, '_Doomsday – When the Army of Ghosts Attacked'_ was what one of the papers had said, but it was on the fringes. Both wizarding and muggle media had begun to cover the events of the previous week up.

Ioan was still somewhat amazed at how they'd managed it. A hand or two from the security services; the men and women he'd witnessed at the meetings himself and Harry attended. Some of the most calm, yet passionate people he'd seen witness to.

"Very British." Judith commented in a light tone.

Ioan was sure she was replying to his internal musings, she had an uncanny ability to do that, or she just read the micro-expressions and murmurs that they all made.

It was something he'd learned to do himself, when he'd been out to expose the great alien cover up within wizarding culture. The one that had been exposed, yet again to the world and was covered up once more. It still amused him; that wizards could still ignore what had been literally in their faces ready to convert and exterminate them. Yet they were willing to push it under the carpet, shove it in the floo and think of it as a magically related incident.

Together he and Harry pulled the large bottomless bag over the crate Judith had indicated. Now that he was closer to it he could see it meant business, an uncertain something that made him uneasy.

The bags, of which he and Harry had several were something they'd arrived at through long experimentation; being able to contain alien technology and magical items without losing structural integrity and maintaining a level area within.

He knew of Quidditch teams that had messed around with larger and more stable tents which in general were a similar enchantment to the bottomless bags. But these were far more durable and stable. It was something he and Harry had worked at for some time and there were areas around Harry's house that had shown the results of their failed experiments.

Now though they were almost problem free.

Problem free enough to steal away anything that they didn't want the MOD getting their hands on.

They would still need to store it securely. That was one of the many things they'd had to sacrifice for the stability of the bottomless bags.

They were stable, however entropy of the bag and the enchantment itself was greatly increased so they would never be a useful archiving tool. They were at the moment good for around five days, a week at the most before they lost structural integrity and in the best case just spewed their contents out.

Harry had shown him where he intended to store the items from Torchwood. In his village that he'd come across, the one he'd discovered with Iris Wildthyme.

Since then he'd been to Ashfordly with Harry and without, to check in. It was somehow still remaining secluded. Hidden off the radar so to speak.

The large estate that was there would serve as a good location to store all the items they were retrieving from Torchwood One, until they could work out where to put it next.

"Come on day dreamer." Judith said to Harry who seemed be like him caught musing.

"Maybe Torchwood has those clones of the Beatles somewhere around here."

Ioan snorted. "Only if they could weaponise them." He muttered.

"Maybe they've got that Auton boy band that went rogue a year or two ago." Harry mused.

They never did find out where they turned up. They hadn't even intended to be there for aliens, it had been a seemingly simple magic-manipulation case at a reality TV show where one of the judges had been using some alien technology to level judging. It had all turned very nasty, the Auton boy band hadn't helped matters.

"They weren't that bad either, compared to some." Judith fixed him with a look. He was sure those breasts had been hypnotic.

"…" Ioan opened his mouth to say something and then thought better of it. Judith just laughed.

_Present…_

Harry was starting to think he needed a new car.

Needed probably wasn't the right word.

_Wanted_ was the more correct word.

His Lotus was currently being rebuilt, the Cybermens' weapons fire had seriously damaged several components of it. The cooling and oil systems were only the start of the problems.

But he was determined to keep it, it had survived one invasion and it would continue to service him on any future ones. The engine block had survived unscathed and only slightly scarred.

He was in two minds about the weapon systems though, a little too Bond-like.

LPI however would be taking a business trip before in the months leading up to Christmas to go to a weapons trade show.

He'd gotten the idea to do so rather than working through his contacts to get weapons after seeing a repeat of Sarah Jane's documentary about the Covert and Operational Procurement Exhibition or 'COPEX' that she'd filmed, produced and everything else a few years ago. Watching it now he realised the metal mutt K9 must have shot a lot of the covert footage based on the angle and quality.

He was determined not to go down Jack's Torchwood Three path of riding around in a big Range Rover. That was far too 'special ops' conspicuous.

Judith and Ioan also had budgets allocated to them for vehicles, all part of the 'LPI employment package'. Not that they'd taken up on the offer. Ioan was happy to apparate to meet him and then go with him or to take the Defender.

Judith was…Judith.

"I'm glad you forced me to go to this _garden party_." Harry looked to Daphne. While he still derided the idea of a garden party, it was somewhere to go to disengage his mind for a little while. From Cohort Dow, Torchwood and the security services.

"Even if you'd prefer to be wandering yards searching for new conveyances?" Daphne teased.

Harry chuckled. "No, of course not." Harry paused. "What I _really_ I want to be doing is hanging out with a bunch of other wizards revelling in the fact we're alive, but not mentioning _why_." His tone slipped to slightly cynical.

Daphne looked over at him. "There will be some individuals who do not think like that Harry. Draco will be there."

Harry nodded appreciatively. "At least there'll be someone to talk to."

"Are you still surprised at your association?" Daphne asked, it was something he'd often remarked on.

"I'm more close to George than I am to Ron I think some of the time." Harry said as he slowed down to look at the little wooden signs that indicated the roads in this part of the countryside. He didn't have a GPS in here and unless he re-kitted it out it wouldn't be any use where they were going.

But Daphne had said their destination wasn't heavily fortified with magic either.

He'd checked maps before they'd departed nonetheless, however there were more T-junctions that he'd first thought.

"We develop Harry, relationships, associations. They develop and grow."

Harry frowned at the sign and continued on, annoyed that the signs seemed to be telling the truth. "And my relationship with Ron has remained the same, stagnated even."

Daphne remained silent for a moment. "You know I do not like to make judgments on personal relationships Harry." She finally replied.

Harry exhaled as they came to another crossroads. "Honestly." He shook his head. "How many of these cross roads are…" He looked up at the sign. "There?" He raised an eyebrow and looked at Daphne and then grinned and put his foot down, changing gear swiftly as they sped along the road.

"Harry are you sure your conveyance can handle these conditions?" Daphne didn't seem worried though was looking around concerned.

"Fractal projection." He said. "I was worrying too much about where we were going." He nodded up at the rear view mirror. "Not where we've been."

Daphne craned around. It looked like the road they had been on. It seemed to stretch into the distance.

"It's like a camera obscura." Harry rattled off. "Do you know any spells that can create darkness?" Harry asked with a grin.

Daphne leant out the window and aimed at the next signpost and cast the spell as Harry flicked the headlights of the Jag on; revealing a driveway.

Slowing down and changing gear as he did so he could make the corner into the drive way he grinned at Daphne who was removing the bubble head charm she'd used to protect her hair and eyes as she leant out of the Jag.

"I'm impressed by who ever is holding this party Daphne." Harry laughed happily as he looked along the driveway.

There was a sign that indicated 'Conveyance Parking' with an arrow. What he saw in the parking area made him laugh out loud. Though Daphne didn't seem to realise what it was that they parked close to.

The vehicle dwarfed his sports car. It was a steam wagon.

Harry shook his head grinning. "Alright. I'm glad you got me to come along."

Harry walked with Daphne up around the house to the rear where the large manicured garden was filled with people.

She'd said it wasn't that sort of event where he should take her arm and have her guide him in.

"I take it that there'll be plenty of people here I've not encountered before."

Daphne smiled. "Are you basing your assessment on the interesting conveyance Harry?" She asked as they stood at a point on the path. Harry couldn't see any indications as to why this point was significant.

"Yes." He conceded. "And that I can see many people that I've not run into before, or who've attempted to kill me or be obstructive in the Ministry."

Daphne chuckled lightly. "Not all wizards fit into those narrow categories Harry."

"There's probably some people who just dislike me." Harry commented.

"I am not one of those people Mr Potter, Ms Greengrass." Said a man who stepped into their field of view. He was old, though not wizarding so, mature Harry mused as he shook the man's hand.

Harry looked to Daphne for some guidance and found she'd already shook the man's hand and wandered off, a mischievous grin on her face as she left him with the mature man whose name he didn't know.

"Ward Lock Mr Potter." The man, Ward Lock, said as he turned back to look at the party.

"An odd way to celebrate a near miss invasion attempt Mr Lock." Harry said. "Though everyone seems very casual about everything."

"I'm not about to throw you to the cellar Mr Potter. That's where I keep the wine!" He laughed heartily.

Harry didn't bother being surprised, secrets in the wizarding world weren't that for long. What was annoying him though, was Ward Lock's name.

He was sure he'd heard it before, though any more detailed information was buried in the depths of memory.

"You are trying to recall where you have heard my name Mr Potter?"

"Hmm?" Harry asked distracted and found the Ward Lock had started a slow walk towards the main bulk party. "Yes."

"My name is on books and imprints. You may be more familiar with M.L. Books perhaps?"

"_History of Magic_. Of course!" Harry could have sworn, but didn't. Not loudly.

The man chuckled again. "It is a reaction I am familiar with Mr Potter, some thing I am just a name on a book."

"Better to be on the book than in a book." Harry grumbled, once more unintentionally forced to think of Ron and Hermione.

"A publisher always wants be that way, I am the name on the book and within, not the subject of it." He mused and seemed to be about the speak further when a piece of paper materialised in front of him. He plucked it out of the air with more speed than Harry would have thought and then scrunched it into a ball and dropped it. Between then and before it reached the ground it had turned to dust.

"Good grit for the path." He said by way of explanation. "More guests for this soiree of mine." He said and turned away from him.

"Right." Harry said to himself looking over at the group. Now he had to go and _socialise_.

As he wandered around the groups of witches and wizards he began to wish of another alien invasion, assassination attempt or maniacal madman trying to blow something up.

Calm garden parties held by book publishers were unsettling.

"You look unsettled." Said a voice who seemed to enjoy that he was unsettled, there was a small pause and the voice said his name. "Harry."

Harry grinned and turned. "Hello Draco, we're on first name terms now." Harry said grin.

Draco just raised an eyebrow. "Your information was most useful Harry." He said this time not pausing on his name.

Harry shrugged.

Draco appraised him. "Now, are you waiting for an attack to occur, some unbeknownst attacker to jump out wand waving?" Draco asked in a tone of almost amusement, edged with a mild tone of caution.

"Garden parties are so…" Harry shook his head.

Draco snorted. "You will find some of our Hogwarts fellows over by the rosemary." He nodded over to a far corner of the gardens. "Granger is there speaking with Longbottom."

"No sign of Ron?" Harry asked.

"Your tone suggests you don't really care." The other man observed.

Harry turned and looked across the garden. "Maybe I don't." He admitted.

Harry was startled when Draco patted him on the shoulder. "We're not going to hug are we?" Harry asked worried.

"Of course not Potter." Draco commented mildly shocked.

Harry sighed as two wizards approached them. "I guess I'll go and chat to our former Hogwarts chums."

Draco laughed. "One would think you'd prefer to be in a ghastly gaol."

Harry just smirked. "That would depend entirely on whether I had the keys." Harry paused. "Or who was locking me up. Draco." Harry nodded slightly to him and the wizards who had approached to talk with him.

Harry briefly glanced back as he walked away from Draco, the two wizards seemed to be speaking animatedly with Draco.

Hermione smiled at him as he approached and pulled him into a hug. "Hello Harry." She said as they broke apart.

"Hello." He said and shook Neville's hand. Between him walking over from where he'd been with Draco the rest of the group that had been around them had wandered off.

"The others saw you chatting to Malfoy. Lee couldn't believe it." Neville commented.

"Times change." Harry said simply as he ran his hand through the tall rosemary shrub.

"People change." Hermione added in a softer voice.

Neville looked between them. "I'll let you talk." He said pausing beside Hermione placing his hand on her shoulder gently before walking off.

Harry and Hermione stood in silence for several moments.

"Ron?" Harry asked after a few moments.

Hermione glared at him. "Yes." She said after a moment.

Then as they remained in silence a tray floated past. Harry had noticed them; going about the party as though they were completely normal. They were, at least at this party.

"Champagne?" Harry asked.

"Juice." Hermione said as Harry plucked two glasses of something that wasn't champagne from the tray. "You're driving I trust?" As they each took a sip of their drinks.

"Yes, and I want to keep a sober head."

"No one's out to kill you here. We're all likeminded individuals here it seems."

"Happy we didn't die?" Harry asked.

"And accepting that it wasn't wizards involved." Hermione added and sniffed. "More or less."

"Ah I see." Harry said. He remained silence again, unsure how to bring up his friend, or whatever Ron was.

"He seemed such a good, silly boy." Hermione started. She shook her head and made a gesture with her hand. A tray floated over a second or two later and she replaced the juice and took some champagne.

Harry didn't take anything. He'd barely begun to sip his own drink.

"A silly, sometimes jealous boy." Hermione repeated running her hands through the rosemary shrub which was more like a tree beside them.

Harry still didn't know what to say, or even do, it wasn't as though his Hogwarts relationship went anywhere.

He'd ended up trying to kill the mad cow, he didn't think Hermione would like that sort of advice. It hadn't improved his and Ginny's relationship.

"Molly thinks that we should have started having children by now." Hermione broke the silence.

"Oh?" Harry asked. It wasn't something he and Daphne had even raised. She had spoken of some people from Hogwarts who had begun popping out children. Though she didn't say 'popping out'.

"But I'm not sure if I want children." She paused and looked at him. "Not with Ron."

"Oh." Harry said, still not sure what to say. "You know I'm much better at dealing with being shot at than relationship talk Hermione." He said with a half laugh.

This seemed to break the mood as Hermione stared at him for a moment and punched him lightly on the arm. "You're Harry Potter."

"No Auton duplicates here." Harry paused. "Hopefully." He added.

"What?" She looked at him oddly.

"Nothing." Harry took a sip of his drink.

"It's over. I think." Hermione announced after a moment and downed the glass of champagne. The trays seemed to sense this and floated over to take her glass. She didn't take another though, Harry downed his and placed it on the tray before it could leave.

"You think?" Harry asked trying to remain neutral.

"Unless I suddenly encounter an alternate Ron from a parallel universe, I don't think it's likely." She said with a half laugh.

"He'd probably be a fascist or wear an eye patch or something." Harry commented.

"Or be like he is in your _books_." Hermione said with a sly grin.

"Something I should never have shown you." Harry muttered. "And you're still not borrowing them."

"I could just take your footrest." Hermione noted, referring to the footrest he'd made by sticking several of the _Harry Potter and the…_ books together.

"You could." Harry said and offered her his arm. "Now shall we return to the party?"

Hermione looked at his arm and nodded though didn't take his arm.

They began to walk slowly back to where it was more busy. "Draco doesn't currently have a partner I think." Harry mentioned in an amused tone causing Hermione to snort.

"Just because you're chummy with Malfoy doesn't mean I'm going to be Harry." She paused. "And you're on first name terms with him?"

"It seems yes. It's taken him long enough." Harry murmured.

"Mmm, I heard. Ron ranted about it before all of this, when we were trying to have a calm sit down." Hermione idly commented.

"I hope my association with Draco didn't-" Harry began.

Hermione waved her hand. "Ron gets obsessed over the smallest things Harry" She paused sighing "and angry over them too. Your association with Draco Malfoy is your own business."

"I bet-" Harry began and stopped himself.

"You bet what?" Hermione asked him.

Harry shook his head. "I was about to mention Ron again." He shook his head.

"He's not dead Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, we can still talk about him. He's just" She paused and shook her head. "Perhaps you're right."

"There's plenty of people here to chat to let's leave the red headed weasel alone." Harry smirked as Hermione looked at him with a look of mock shock on her face.

"Harry! You have been spending too much time with Draco Malfoy!" They both laughed as they continued to walk along.

"Your friend _Draco_ does seem busy though." Hermione said looking over where Draco was talking with a witch. "Different people talking to him."

"Been keeping an eye on him?" Harry asked raising an eyebrow.

"I've been watching everyone Harry." She countered neutrally. "Hannah's been doing the rounds chatting to everyone, probably drumming up interest for her new business venture." She gestured over to one corner of the garden. "Rolf and Luna arrived just after you. They've been chatting away with Ward Lock for some time."

"Did you also?" Harry asked.

Hermione shifted slightly. "I admit" She paused as Harry looked at her. "That I chatted with him for some time, till his message system alerted him of more arrivals." She exhaled. "It was nice to talk to someone, like you."

"Always being shot at?" Harry asked.

"No, Harry, I can talk to plenty of people who are constantly being attacked. I work for the Ministry."

Harry grinned.

"People who aren't involved in the machinations of said Ministry." She continued. Ron's name was unsaid though the implication that in amongst his obsessions and whatever not he'd not left his work at work. Or maybe his work was boring.

Maybe it involved lots of meetings and only a little bit of going out and being incompetent.

Harry was caught in thought for a little too long and only just managed an "Okay." When Hermione said she was going off to speak with some people who did…something. He caught 'farming' and 'weather'.

Harry sat, leaning against the building still warm from the day's sunlight, the garden party was slowly winding down, though many seemed content with waiting until their host called an end to the proceedings, or whatever it was that people did when they wanted to end a garden party. Take out a starting pistol and fire it into the air maybe, he didn't know. He'd never attended a garden party before, something that had shocked many of the people here.

He's also had a moderately interesting time, there'd been some reminiscing about time at Hogwarts, chatting about the 'recent events'. Even some talk of aliens, though the 'A' word wasn't said very often it was just alluded to casually.

It had been quite a relaxing casual day all said; there had been no threats of death or madness, just casual conversation that for the most part he followed. Some people from Daphne's line of work he was lost somewhat, all about logistics and other things.

His musings were broken by Daphne stepping into his field of view. "Harry?" She asked softly.

"Hmm?" Harry asked looking at her and frowning. "Why're talking softly?"

She smiled. "You looked content I did not wish to break you out of your reverie."

"It was a good idea to come here Daphne." He said standing up. "Is it our turn to leave?"

Daphne nodded but paused. "I…" She trailed slightly looking back towards the party. "I offered Hermione to accompany us, she seemed somewhat distressed concerning Ron."

Harry nodded. "Good idea."

The steam wagon had departed and Harry hadn't been able to find the owner of the vehicle at the party. Or no one who was able to tell him who it was or if anyone knew whose it was. Many had apparated or arrived by horse drawn carriage and neither had noticed it when they'd arrived.

Hermione complained as they drove out of the driveway that she could have appartated home, but soon settled into chatting about various topics as they drove away from the party.

As they were driving Harry felt his phone vibrate, he was still in the process of re-kitting the Jag out for his phone services after an investigation with Judith had killed some of the post-1970s electronics. He decided to let it go, they would leave a message if it was really important. Only a certain few had his number.

It was only the following day when he arose that he remembered to look at the phone again and then quickly dialled Judith's number.

"Never heard of Wester Drumlins. Is it important?"

-/

_A/N: _

_A great many things have got in the way of me finishing this chapter. I had hoped to have it a little more polished by this point. But life-things are becoming complicated._

_I've had this chapter mostly finished for more than a month and the next 6 chapters are in various states of being finished and half finished. _

_I hope that I'll be able to post those soon, if only as a distraction to the life-related things._

_I know this chapter is lacking action, it's more of an expanded end, and epilogue of sorts to the previous chapter. _

_So there's not much that goes on in this chapter that's very notable._

_Except for me breaking up Hermione and Ron._

_This is a relationship that, like Harry and Ginny's I intended to keep together, but as the story has progressed I can't make an argument to myself for keeping them together._

_I've mentioned in the past that I've found I'm not good at writing Ron, his character is just hard for me to age up / make more mature._

_Going along I've not exactly found myself hating Ron but I just can't make his and Hermione's relationship work in an adult context. _

_I was determined to find some way to make it work and have them together. My intention in the past was to have them in a rocky place with a separation or two but then have them end up back together. _

_But I've just found that I can't put them together in a mature relationship, not without altering Hermione's character a lot._

_Harry and Ron will probably continue to have a somewhat awkward friendship, but I don't see myself reuniting Hermione and Ron without something drastic happening._


End file.
